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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Half Century Messages 



TO 



Pastors and People 



By 

D. W. C. HUNTINGTON, D. D. 

it 

Chancellor of Nebraska Wesleyan University 



If 



CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 28 1905 

, Copyright Entry 

S / 3 A /<?*$ 

CLASS a. XXc. No 

; x ^ z J s~ 

COPY B. 



3**333 

.HsuHs 



Copyright, 1905, by 
Jennings and Graham 



TO THE 
"VINCENT ASSOCIATION" 

OF 

The Nebraska Wesleyan University 



FOREWORD 

My reason for offering the following papers for 
publication is the importance of the subjects pre- 
sented. They are none of them new, but, as I 
believe, are not as fully and as frequently introduced 
in public discourse, and in Church literature as their 
relation to Christian life demands. No attempt has 
been made to discuss any of the topics exhaustively ; 
I have the hope that they are presented suggestively. 
If the book shall help some to greater expectations 
of faith, and others to deeper searchings of heart, 
the prayer of the author will be answered. 



University Place, Nebraska, 
July 6th, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. Some Causes of Ministerial Un- 

ACCEPTABLENESS, - II 

II. Good Church Members, - - 21 

III. The Unsatisfactoriness of Some 

Revival Efforts, - 33 

IV. In the Church but Unconverted, - 47 
V. Communion with God, - 59 

VI. The Religious Feelings, - - 71 

VII. The Human Will as a Factor in 

Salvation, - 81 

VIII. Unanswered Prayers, 93 

IX. Christians must Work as the 

Holy Spirit Works, - - 107 

7 



Contents 

Chapter Page 

X. Some Essential Differences between 

Saints and Sinners, - - 119 

XI. Some Mistakes of Young Men, - 135 

XII. Can we be Saved from Committing 

Sin? ----- 14 y 

XIII. Christians and Money, - - - 159 

XIV. Under the Law, - - - 173 
XV. Hardening the Heart, - - - 183 

XVI. Education is Theistic, - - 189 



"Get up freshly ; open your mouth widely ; have done 
quickly." — Martin Luther. 

"The great need of Methodism is, not less fire but 
rnore learning." — Bishop Simpson. 

"The ministry should never be entered upon when a 
man could conscientiously turn to something else." — ■ 
Buckley. 

"Avoid all affectation. A preacher of the Gospel 
is the servant of all." — Methodist Discipline. "Will you 
endeavor not to speak too long or too loud?" — Meth- 
odist Discipline until 1880. 

" God works with broken reeds. If a man conceives 
himself to be an iron pillar, God can do nothing with 
or by him. All the self-conceit and self-confidence has 
to be taken out of him first." — Maclaren. 



"The first problem in oratory is to get rid of insin- 
cerity, to put on manliness and truth; to show plainly 
that every statement is thoroughly believed by the 
preacher." — Anon. 

"Do not please the devil by preaching too long or 
too loud, but please God by denying yourself therein. 
The whole service should begin and end in about an 
hour, unless sometimes on Sunday morning, when you 
may probably lengthen the service a little." — Wesley to 
Adam Clarke. 

"Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be 
triflingly employed. Never trifle away time; neither 
spend any more time at any place than is strictly neces- 
sary." "Do we not loiter away many hours in every 
week? Each try himself. No idleness is consistent 
with growth in grace. Nay, without exactness in re- 
deeming time you can not retain the grace you received 
in justification." — Methodist Discipline. 



IO 



I. 



Some; Causes of Ministerial Unaccept- 

ABLENESS. 

"Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are 
ye?" — Acts xix, 15. 

From an observation of several years, we 
note the following as among the causes of min- 
isterial unacceptableness, so far as the causes 
have existed in ministers themselves : 

1. An appearance of indolence. (1) Phys- 
ical indolence — waste of time in unnecessary 
or trifling matters; neglect of preaching from 
house to house; spending much time in a few 
homes, supposed to be specially agreeable, and 
little or none in many others ; performing min- 
isterial duties generally in an indifferent or per- 
functory manner. (2) Mental indolence, — 
seen in stale or unstudied sermons, and thread- 
bare illustrations. In narrowness of thought, 
and lack of variety. In loss of creative or in- 
11 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

ventive power in sermonizing, and in conse- 
quent tendency to hobbyism. In failure to 
carry out any system of daily study. 

2. Affectation. Seen in the conscious or 
unconscious imitation of some other person in 
voice or manner. In having a voice or tone 
in the pulpit which is unnatural, and which the 
preacher uses nowhere but in the pulpit. It is 
seen in the effort to speak at all times in the 
language and with the gestures appropriate 
to a climax only. Among its most hurtful 
manifestations is the simulating of deep feel- 
ing — a manufactured tremor of the voice, and 
an effort to command tears which are not 
prompted by depth of solicitude nor suggested 
by the point in hand. The learned and the un- 
learned will with equal readiness interpret this 
as practicing upon their emotions. His man- 
ners will be most acceptable who is strictly 
himself. Tears and quivering lips are never 
offensive when they are begotten of deep con- 
victions, and brought forth in the painful ap- 
prehension of the interests involved. They are 
never normal when they become habitual. 

3. From all that is artificial in the pulpit, 
congregations will recoil. They expect it in 

13 



Causes of Ministerial Un accept ableness. 

the theater ; they despise it in the pulpit. Arti- 
ficial excitement, however generated, is only 
loss to the preacher of the gospel. It may pro- 
duce a temporary ease in speech, though this 
result is by no means certain. It generally 
leads to extravagance in expression and ex- 
aggeration in statement. The average hearer 
will quickly distinguish between this man-made 
unction and the fervor of a soul moved by the 
Holy Spirit. It savors of insincerity. It weak- 
ens conviction in the preacher, and leads his 
hearers to regard his manner as a pretense. 
There is a homely jingle which runs thus : 

"Begin low ; 
Proceed slow; 
Take fire- 
Rise higher; 
Be self-possessed 
When most impressed." 

This was once repeated in the presence of a 
number of ministers, to which a lady responded, 
addressing herself to her husband : "Now, my 
dear, I see what is your trouble ; you rise higher 
before you take fire." 

4. Want of sustained ministerial spirit. 
When the minister is one man in the pulpit and 

13 



Hai,e Century Messages. 

quite another out of it, he will not long be 
acceptable to his most thoughtful hearers. If 
after presenting important truth with apparent 
seriousness, he throws himself at once into a 
trifling attitude, the good effect of his sermon 
is lost, and he will be regarded by many as a 
make-believe. In a consciously sustained con- 
secration, the man is always the minister. 

5. Want of refinement in manners has 
sometimes rendered ministers unacceptable. 
Untidiness in personal appearance, engaging 
in conversation which parents would prefer 
that their children should not hear. Egotism, 
displayed in demanding special consideration 
from the homes which they visit, subjecting 
their hosts to additional labor for their con- 
venience. Treating advice or friendly criticism 
as offensive. Monopolizing the conversation of 
the social circle by talking principally of them- 
selves. Indulging in habits which are offensive 
to persons of good taste. No minister has any 
reason to expect to be acceptable to an intelli- 
gent congregation who uses tobacco in any 
form, either in his study or out of it. 

6. A selfish ambition has rendered some 
ministers unacceptable to their Churches. 

14 



Causes of Ministerial Unacceptabi^ness. 

When they exhibit dissatisfaction with their 
fields of labor, and are looking and longing for 
something more to their liking, they will soon 
become unacceptable. When they seek the ad- 
vertising of the newspapers, and court the 
favor of the world at the expense of their 
Churches; when they become prominent in 
their connection with outside societies, and 
seem ready to accept anything which will bring 
them a higher salary than they receive as min- 
isters, is it any wonder that they are unaccept- 
able? When they carry with them the spirit 
of complaint, preach funereal sermons the year 
around; when they criticise severely those 
whom they regard as more favored than them- 
selves, and exhibit on all occasions an under- 
tone of discontent, it is time they were unac- 
ceptable. 

7. The want of serious cheerfulness. There 
is an extreme reserve which is understood to 
mean haughtiness or indifference towards 
others. There is a self-absorption which fails 
to see and properly greet all classes. There 
is a religious self-consciousness which borders 
upon Pharisaism, and there is a morbid right- 
eousness, a legalism which is cold and cynical. 

15 



Half Century Messages. 

Any of these types in a minister will render 
him unacceptable. Martin Luther's rendering 
of Matt, vi, 1 6, is suggestive, "Thou shalt not 
look sour." A good advice to ministers for all 
days as well as those of fasting. A good man 
once said of his minister: "I think our pastor 
is anointed, but I am afraid it was done with 
vinegar." 

8. Preachers have been unacceptable from 
a manifest lack in education. Bad English in 
the pulpit; singulars and plurals hitched to- 
gether; modes, tenses, and persons indiscrimi- 
nately mixed; carelessness in historical refer- 
ences, and blunders in scientific allusions. 
Worse still when a minister indulges in a 
wholesale berating of science and scientists, as 
if they were the worst enemies of God and 
man, and talks of the Holy Spirit as though 
spiritual power could be best realized along 
with ignorance and laziness. Indiscriminate 
denunciation of "higher criticism" from the 
pulpit has prejudiced more people against 
Christian teaching, and disgusted more think- 
ing men with ministers, than all that is called 
higher criticism. 

9. Long sermons have made ministers un- 

16 



Causes of Ministerial Unacceptableness. 

acceptable. Much of the criticism upon long 
sermons may be unreasonable, but it is true 
that few men are able to hold the attention of 
an audience for an hour. If the sermon is 
made long by repetitions of the same thoughts 
in different language, by the multiplication of 
adjectives, or by illustrations made wearisome 
by minute detail, it will seem to the hearers 
to be excruciatingly long. If the preacher 
thinks that the exhaustive treatment of his sub- 
ject is of more importance than the continued 
interest of his hearers, he will soon become un- 
acceptable. If he stops just when his audience 
wishes him to go on, they will not lose their in- 
terest in his sermons. 

10. Irreverence on the part of ministers 
has rendered some unacceptable. When they 
use the name of God with unnecessary fre- 
quency, and with a familiarity which to some 
seems to savor of profanity; when they inject 
into their discourse, "for heaven's sake," "for 
God's sake," etc., they are shocking the feel- 
ings of some of their devout worshipers. Say- 
ing queer things, playing off puns with Scrip- 
ture language, repeating stories which excite 
laughter, — these may win them the applause 
2 17 



Half Century Messages. 

of the rabble, but by their thoughtful hearers 
they will be regarded as unbecoming a messen- 
ger of Christ. 

1 1. The home life of the minister has much 
to do with his acceptability. If the relations 
of the members of the family are unpleasant; 
if there is ill temper in the atmosphere of the 
home*; if there is no family government, or if 
the government is of a harsh and legal type; 
if the piety of the home is superficial or Phari- 
saic, and if the preacher is better everywhere 
else than in his home, he will be justly unac- 
ceptable. 



18 



"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the 
elder; yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be 
clothed with humility, for God resisteth the proud, and 
giveth grace to the humble." — Peter. 

"Be kindly affectioned one to another ; in honor pre- 
ferring one another. Be of the same mind one toward 
another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men 
of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits." — Paul. 

"It is no more the duty of the boy to study 
physiology, in order that he may know how to train each 
member of his body to perform its part, than it is for 
each member of the Church to study the needs of the 
times, that he, as a member of Christ's body, may know 
how to do his duty." — Rev. A. G. Upton. 

"What would Christ have accomplished had He 
come from heaven every morning, brought His lunch, 
and gone home at night? It was because He dwelt 
among men, and was one of us, that He won our hearts. 
So the Church must not strain out a congenial class. It 
must not skim the pool ; it must dip to the bottom, even 
to the miry bottom of society. It must embrace all if it 
is to save all."— Parkhurst. 



*9 



"Some who consider themselves reasonable men will 
set a whole Church in a blaze about the merest trifle. 
Meeting after meeting will be called, and angry discus- 
sions provoked, and holy work overturned about the 
smallest mistake of a preacher, or the minutest fault of 
a deacon. Societies which were doing great service have 
been broken up by the whims of good brethren, who 
made much ado about nothing, and did great harm in 
trying to do a little good." — Spurgeon. 

"The times demand Church members who are loyal 
to principle. The devil no longer goes about, seeking 
whom he may devour; he has found that the roaring 
business puts people on their guard. He has put away 
the smell of the forest, and taken on the perfume of the 
city. He comes in stylish and insinuating forms to en- 
tice from moral rectitude. The world is cutting the cor- 
ners on all moral questions. The times demand Church 
members who stand four-square and straight-edged on 
all those questions." — Rev. A. G. Upton. 



20 



II. 

Good Church Members. 

"So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and 
severally members one of another." — Rom. xii, 5. 

The; apostle compares the mutual relations 
of Christians to those of the different members 
of the human body. All together they consti- 
tute one body, and each in his proper place 
serves the interest of the whole. He evidently 
believed in Church organization — "congrega- 
tions of faithful men" and women — and he evi- 
dently knew the great value of piety, and of 
harmonious activity on the part of Church 
members. 

Now there are good people in the world 
who are better Christians than they are Church 
members. They mean well, but seem incapable 
of blending their lives and efforts with others. 
It must be admitted also that there are others 
who, in some respects, are better Church mem- 

21 



Haef Century Messages. 

bers than they are Christians. The deficiencies 
in both these classes are much to be regretted ; 
the Churches are all in need of members who 
possess that, most excellent combination of 
qualifications, — spiritual life joined with effi- 
ciency in the duties of Church membership. 

I. Some Characteristics oe Good Church 
Members. 

i. Good Church members are, first of all, 
Christians. They are repentant and regener- 
ate, and hence possess some degree of spiritual 
life. They aim to be right with God and man, 
and while it is true that some who are thus 
Christian are not the best of Church members, 
the fact of Christian experience and character 
must be put down as the most essential and 
fundamental qualification for Church member- 
ship. All other endowments of mind or estate 
can not constitute a good Church member in 
the absence of these. Great defects and many 
blunders will be regretted, and at the same 
time overlooked, in professed Christians if the 
evidences of a consecrated life and a Christ- 
like spirit are recognized. Gifts, learning, lib- 
erality and professions do not in themselves 
22 



Good Church Members. 

make a good Church member in the absence of 
solid piety. 

2. Good Church members will place great 
value upon their Church relations. They will 
appreciate the fact that, with all its faults and 
shortcomings, the Church is a divine institu- 
tion, and includes the best of earth. They will 
treat their connection with it as an exalted 
privilege, and they will hold as sacred the re- 
sponsibilities arising out of their membership. 
They will regard their Church homes as next 
in value to their own family circles, and the 
obligations of their Church covenants as bind- 
ing as their marriage vows. They will not 
remain in the Church to dishonor it, nor sepa- 
rate themselves from it for trivial reasons. 
They will seek in all legitimate ways to pre- 
serve the good name, and increase the influence 
of the Churches into the fellowship of which 
they have been received. 

3. Good Church members have right mo- 
tives in uniting with the Church. They do not 
join the Church altogether for what they hope 
to receive from it. They do not come into the 
Church as into a railroad train, in order to se- 
cure transportation to some desirable destina- 

23 



Half Century Messages. 

tion. They may well desire to place themselves 
and their families in the fellowship and under 
the watch-care of the Church, but they will 
also have the higher purpose of helping as they 
may in the work of the Church for the benefit 
of the world. They take their places in the 
Church in order to be where Christ wants them, 
and in order to render to His cause the most 
effective service. They join the Church for the 
purpose of bringing their homes under the best 
possible influences, and to unite their efforts 
with others in promoting the kingdom of Jesus 
Christ in the most effective way. They wish to 
be in line with gracious means, and to stand 
with others where Christian character and life 
are expected of them. 

4. Good Church members will seek to in- 
form themselves concerning the Church — its 
history, its doctrines, and its work in the world. 
They will study Christian movements to "note 
what God is doing in the world." They will 
give some time to the study of the Bible, a duty 
never more needful to the Christian believer 
than now, and as opportunity allows, they will 
read up in Christian literature. Fathers and 
mothers will see that their homes are furnished 
24 



Good Church M^mb^rs. 

with the productions of those who think well 
and write well upon religious themes. The re- 
ligious paper will be brought in as an educa- 
tional necessity in the family. Good Church 
members will give to their children the best 
educational advantages within their power in 
order to fit them for the highest and widest use- 
fulness, and as far as possible they will select 
Christian schools for the education of their 
sons and daughters. 

5. The business and citizen life of good 
Church members is religious. They will be as 
truly religious in the store, the shop, and the 
counting-room, as in the Church or the prayer- 
meeting. They will regard themselves as rep- 
resenting the Church everywhere and at all 
times. Their politics will be Christian politics. 
They recognize the fact that they are as really 
witnesses for Christ in one place as another, 
and that what they say and do in their daily 
intercourse with their fellow-men constitutes 
the chief element in their influence for or 
against religion. 

6. Those who rightly regard the respon- 
sibilities of Church membership will maintain 
a consecrated social life. A social life they will 

25 



Half Century Messages. 

have and should have ; it is in the arrangement 
of God. It furnishes large opportunities of 
good, and equally large possibilities of evil. It 
is by the tone and manner of their social life 
that the piety of Christian people is most fre- 
quently judged. It is here that they either gain 
or lose religious influence over others. Those 
who make the governing motive of their social 
life that of personal pleasure only are not good 
Church members. They can not be true to 
their Church till they aim at doing good, and 
honoring Christ in this as in all other depart- 
ments of life. 

7. To be good Church members Christians 
must consecrate their gifts. The "spiritual 
gifts" 1 of the New Testament have their coun- 
terpart in those now in the Church. Some have 
by nature the gift of "teaching/' 2 and this 
native gift is quickened by an experience of 
saving grace. Some are blest with marked 
ability in public discourse — they can "proph- 
esy." 3 The gifts of others are in "exhorta- 
tion," or in "ruling." 4 To others is given 
ability in financiering, quite above that of their 
brethren, and they are to "wait on their min- 

» 1 Cor. xii. 2 Rom. xii, 7. *Ibid. vs. 6. *Ibid. vs. 8. 

26 



Good Church Members. 

istry." 5 Whatever the gift, whether its rank 
be that of one talent or five or ten, there is a 
place for it in the Church, and it will render 
substantial benefit to the cause of Christ if it 
be constantly offered to Him in willing service. 
Every Church member should study to know 
his own gift, and not idly covet that of another. 
He should "stir up the gift of God which is in 
him," 6 not envying his brother his more con- 
spicuous endowments, and neither neglecting 
nor boasting of his own. 

8. All Church members who meet their ob- 
ligations will avoid individualism. They will 
not regard their duty as always marked out by 
their technical rights, or their personal prefer- 
ences. They will not always insist upon having 
their own views carried out, nor upon having 
their own advices heeded. They will not be- 
come sour and turn their backs upon the 
Church in case others have their way instead 
of themselves. Up to the point of conscientious 
convictions they will waive what is personal 
to themselves in order to act with their breth- 
ren. They will do all in their power to pre- 
serve harmony in the life of the Church, and 

6 Rom. xii, 7. 6 2 Tim. i, 16. 

27 



Half Century Messages. 

will sacrifice to the last degree rather than be- 
come the occasion of a Church quarrel. No 
man, however rich, and no minister, however 
gifted, is worth the cost of a Church strife. 

9. A good Church member will do all in 
his power to protect the good name of his 
Church. He will seek in all legitimate ways 
to increase its influence. He will not tolerate 
known iniquity in its members, but he will not 
be hasty in believing evil of his brethren. He 
will "support the weak, and be patient towards 
all men." 7 He will not impugn the motives 
nor harshly criticise the conduct of those who 
differ from him. He will not "think of him- 
self more highly than he ought to think." 8 

10. A good Church member will, as far as 
possible, sustain all the services of his Church. 
He will not neglect them because the pastor 
happens not to be the man he wanted, nor be- 
cause he thinks some members of the Church 
have wronged him, or have slighted him or his 
family. He will not attend Church for the 
entertainment which he can get out of the serv- 
ice, nor will he insist that the preacher shall 
always preach upon the subjects concerning 

7 1 Thes. v, 14. 8 Rom. xii, 3 

28 



Good Church Members. 

which he is most pleased to hear. He will not 
find fault with the pastor if he does not hear 
his own belief exactly stated and defended in 
every sermon. He will go to Church to wor- 
ship God with his fellow Christians, and to 
sustain by his presence and his offerings an in- 
stitution ordained of God for the salvation of 
men. He will brave some bad weather, and 
subject himself to some degree of hardship and 
inconvenience in order to be with his brethren 
in Sunday and mid-week services. He will 
"contribute of his earthly substance, according 
to his ability, to the support of the Gospel and 
the various benevolent enterprises of the 
Church." 9 He will never stay away from a 
service from the anticipation of a public collec- 
tion. In a word, good Church members are 
just all-around Christians. 



9 Methodist Discipline. 



29 



"Increase appointments for public meetings only as 
there is demand for them. Have the interest compel 
the meetings, and do not appoint extra meetings to get 
up interest." — Rev. Herrick Johnson. 

"Opposition or neglect of needed reforms will pre- 
vent revivals of religion. The Holy Spirit is a reformer, 
and where Churches will not co-operate in the promotion 
of greatly needed reforms, they need not expect a re- 
vival of religion." — Finney. 

"There are special harvest seasons in the spiritual 
as in the natural world — times of great ingathering 
when, as round about Ephesus, mightily grows the Word 
of God and prevails." — Revivals, Their Place and Their 
Power. 

"It is a mistake to suppose that aggressive spiritual 
work can be successfully accomplished by setting apart 
a few weeks in the year for it, without the most careful 
preparation for it during the rest of the time. Yet this 
is largely the habit." — Perren's Revival Sermons. 

"Be watchful against placing dependence on a pro- 
tracted meeting, as if that of itself would produce a 
revival. This is a point of great danger, and has always 
been so. This is the great reason why the Church in 
successive generations has always had to give up her 
measures, because Christians had come to rely upon 
them for success." — Finney's Lectures. 



3 1 



"Among the evils to be avoided is the recognition 
of any particular ministers or class of ministers as re- 
vivalists. There is no such distinctive class known to 
the New Testament. ... It is giving countenance 
among the people to the idea that certain ministers on 
wheels have a kind of monopoly of the Holy Spirit, and 
can command His services on call. It is disturbing and 
dishonoring to the pastorate." 

"Avoid the notion that any excitement is pernicious 
and is therefore to be studiously resisted. . . . There 
is an excitement that is wholly or chiefly animal. It is 
not grounded in rational conviction. It is fostered by 
rubbing of hands, tones of voice, chorus of song, affect- 
ing stories, mere hortatory appeals and social bodily 
contact. It can be worked up any day in a crowd by a 
skillful leader." — Revivals, Their Place and Power. 

"Avoid adopting the idea that a revival can not be 
enjoyed without a protracted meeting. Some Churches 
have got into a morbid state of feeling on this subject. 
Their zeal has become all spasmodic and feverish, so 
that they never think of doing anything to promote a 
revival only in that way. When a protracted meeting is 
held, they will seem to be wonderfully zealous, and then 
sink into a torpid state until another protracted meeting 
produces another spasm." — Perren's Revival Sermons, 
p. 50. 



32 



III. 



Th£ Unsatis^actorin^ss otf Som£ Revival 
Efforts. 

"Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, 
Why could not we cast him out?" — Matt, xvii, 19. 

Revival efforts have frequently proved un- 
satisfactory and disappointing. This has been 
true at least of many in quite recent years. 
(1) In that they have failed to bring to the 
services, in any considerable numbers, the non- 
Christian elements of communities. (2) In 
the small numbers of conversions among those 
who have attended. (3) Unsatisfactory in the 
fact that the work has often proved transient 
rather than permanent. (4) In that the fea- 
ture of personal reformation of life has not 
followed such efforts in the degree which re- 
vival promises. (5) In that such efforts have 
sometimes closed, leaving the Churches no 
more spiritual or influential for good than 

3 33 



Half Century Messages. 

when they were commenced. (6) In that they 
have sometimes produced in Churches and com- 
munities a feeling of prejudice against what 
are called revival meetings. 

I. Some: Causes of the Unsatisfactoriness 
of Certain Revival Efforts. 

i. They have sometimes been ill timed. 
Revival, meaning by that term a general re- 
ligious awakening in the Church and commu- 
nity, is a spiritual harvest. It follows the work 
of planting and cultivating. It is an ingather- 
ing of the results of faithful preaching, as well 
as much personal work on the part of pastor 
and people. Where the preaching has been of 
a character to please and entertain, rather than 
to produce conviction ; when those who should 
have been active workers have been indifferent 
or religiously idle, the time for harvesting has 
not come. Revival efforts begun without re- 
gard to conditions are likely to fail of satisfac- 
tory results. Such an effort on the part of a 
Church is a matter of too serious moment to 
be toyed with as an experiment, or to be com- 
menced and ended by the phases of the moon, 
or the pressure of business. 

34 



Unsatisfactoriness of Somd Revival Efforts. 

2. Genuine revival is the work of the Holy 
Spirit in and through human agency. Min- 
isters and other Christian workers are not 
"mere instruments" in this work; they are co- 
agents. Perfection in the work of the human 
agents is not to be expected, but it is all im- 
portant that they seek just what the Holy Spirit 
seeks. If worldly, selfish, or unworthy aims are 
allowed to enter into revival efforts, they cor- 
respondingly fail of the Spirit's presence. It 
is well to seek converts; but if this be done 
chiefly to add to a Church rather than to save 
the lost, the movement is out of sympathy with 
Christ, and must be wanting in Divine energy. 
A misguided sentiment has sometimes de- 
manded of ministers a reputation as successful 
revivalists. Under this pressure the tempta- 
tion to aim at building up such a reputation is 
very great. Churches have sometimes looked 
upon revival efforts as the means of carrying 
them up to the point of paying off Church 
debts, building new edifices, or enabling them to 
offer increased salaries. In revival efforts, 
whatever alloys the motives of minister or peo- 
ple with a self-regarding aim, to that extent 
renders the movement worldly and weak. "We 
35 



Half Century Messages. 

are workers together with God." 1 We are to 
seek the end which He seeks. We are to seek 
this end for the same reason that He seeks it. 
This makes room for God. 

3. We fear that in some revival efforts the 
secret of failure has been in the fact that the 
Holy Spirit has been dishonored. He has not, 
excepting in theory, been sufficiently relied 
upon as the all-essential in the work. Have 
we not treated Him as an impersonal influence, 
rather than as the Personal God? Have we 
not treated Him as distant, rather than as al- 
ways present ? Have we not entreated Him to 
come and help us do our work, instead of ask- 
ing Him to receive our service in the accom- 
plishment of His work? Do we not place re- 
liance upon the abilities, the reputation, the 
gifts, or the tactics of men which we should 
place upon the Spirit of God only? In the 
Church as in the Nation, when we have "the 
man who can do it," the man fails us. "The 
Egyptians are still men, and not God ; and their 
horses are flesh, and not spirit." 2 False trusts 
are but the reverse side of unbelief; they are 

1 2 Cor. vi, 1. 8 Isa. xxxi, 3. 

36 



Unsatisfactoriness of Some) Revival Efforts. 

equally effectual in preventing the many mighty 
works of Jesus. 

4. Certain methods of advertising revival- 
meetings have been unfavorable to their high- 
est success. The use of the newspapers has 
been often carried to an unhealthful extreme. 
When this plan has descended to the thin art of 
"puffing," it has usually awakened the sus- 
picion of self-glorying or of insincerity. An- 
nouncements of special attractions in music, 
and of the expected presence of distinguished 
persons who are to take part, may for a few 
times gather the crowd, but it will be a crowd 
already prejudiced by the feeling that a plan 
is laid for catching them. All such attractions 
are in the end generally distractions, and often 
detractions. A crowd is not absolutely indis- 
pensable to a successful revival effort, but con- 
fidence in the simplicity and purity of the mo- 
tives which guide the movement is essential to 
real success. Concentration of thought upon 
the truth which leads men to know themselves 
sinners, and Christ as a Savior, is first of all 
to be desired. The attempt to awaken and save 
men by attractive indirections generally dissi- 
pates religious feeling, and diverts the thought 

37 



Half Century Messages. 

from the very truths which the revival meet- 
ing is supposed most deeply to impress. 

5. "Altar services" are venerable for their 
age and usefulness in revival efforts. They are 
still to some extent helpful. But it is also evi- 
dent that the more common methods of con- 
ducting these services are regarded by increas- 
ing numbers as in some respects unwise and 
unprofitable. ( 1 ) In some Churches their fre- 
quency, and the fact that they are attended with 
little or no apparent result, have served to de- 
stroy their meaning, and greatly to impair their 
effectiveness as special means. (2) "Coming 
to the altar" is sometimes treated as a universal 
test of penitence. Those who respond to the 
invitation and come forward, are accepted, 
without further evidence, as penitents, while 
those who decline the invitation are treated as 
willfu 1 ly rejecting Christ. We do not think 
that the leaders of altar services generally mean 
all this, but they often leave this impression 
upon their audiences. The effect of this is un- 
fortunate in the extreme. It may not be wholly 
pride or conscious impenitence which leads 
some persons to decline the invitation to the 
altar. There are those who think they have 

33 



Unsatisfactoriness of Some; Revival Efforts. 

reasons for remaining outside the usual exer- 
cises of the altar service. And if the pastor 
or the evangelist conveys the impression that 
a refusal to come to the altar when invited is a 
refusal to come to Christ, he will lose his hold 
on many whom he might hope otherwise to 
benefit. It is not at all certain that those who 
are not led to Christ through this means can 
not be led in other ways. (3) The usual 
course ' of conversing with persons who are 
kneeling at the altar, and at a time when they 
are supposed to be engaged in prayer, is, in our 
view, of doubtful utility, not to say propriety. 
We can not say that it has never helped any 
one ; we can say that it has hindered some. If 
there is a time when the human soul has need 
to shut out all external sights and sounds, that 
time is when it is trying to speak with God. 
The writer retains a vivid recollection of cer- 
tain altar services in his boyhood, during which 
questions and exhortations and songs were 
poured into his ears by good Christian people, 
at the very time when he was told that he must 
pray for himself or he would never be con- 
verted. And he can not forget the necessity 
which he felt himself under of leaving the 

39 



Half Century Messages. 

kneeling circle, and seeking in a nearby forest 
the undisturbed intercourse with God, after 
which he hungered so deeply. Let questions 
be propounded and needful counsels be given 
before and after prayer, rather than obtruded 
upon seekers in those moments when Christ 
should engage their thought. A very devout 
man once said in his prayer-meeting: "Lord, 
help Brother to keep still while I am try- 
ing to pray." (4) A general request for 
Christians in the congregation to come forward 
and labor personally with seekers is usually 
at the risk of bringing to this delicate and re- 
sponsible work some who are unfitted for it. If 
it is regarded as necessary that penitents be 
personally conversed with during the altar 
service, pains should be taken to select for that 
service such as are well reported of for good 
works, and are blest with solid piety and good 
sense. (5) There is a tendency in the ordi- 
nary altar service to maintain one and the same 
test of conversion for all cases. The pressure 
is sometimes very great to secure similar mani- 
festations of spiritual change in all classes. 
This is likely to interfere, not only with proper 
individuality, but with the freedom of the work 
40 



Unsatisfactorinfss of Some; Revival, Efforts. 

of the Spirit. A kind of standard of excellence 
may be easily set by the relation of experiences 
which are strongly marked as emotional events, 
and the type becomes the test. This test to 
some may be entirely superficial, while to others 
it may exact the impossible. And when little 
or no acount is made of differences in age, in 
temperament, in education, or in past habits of 
life, the natural effect is a religion of imitation 
instead of spiritual life. (6) The increased 
attention given to the study of religious experi- 
ence from the standpoint of psychology has, 
in recent years, developed the belief that some 
of the religious phenomena which have usually 
been attributed to the direct agency of the Holy 
Spirit, appear and disappear from natural 
causes. Some unwarranted conclusions have 
been drawn from this change of view, but the 
fact of such a change is beyond question. De- 
vout Christian scholars accept the later inter- 
pretation, and speak and write in its defense. 
It is not strange, then, that many who observe 
the ordinary altar service, think they recognize 
more or less of what they explain as only 
psychological or pathological manifestations. 
These phenomena they see ; that which is spir- 
4i 



Haij? Century Messages. 

itual in connection with them they do not see. 
They note that the leader places great emphasis 
upon them as the direct work of the Divine 
Spirit ; he calls on the people to praise God for 
them, and when they hear him say, "Brethren, 
come up and create an atmosphere around these 
seekers," they are inclined to regard the whole 
matter as a psychological demonstration. The 
remedy is in substituting some method of re- 
vival work which shall be less exposed to this 
criticism, or at least such a modification of the 
altar service as shall emphasize nothing which 
is not essential to personal salvation. Right 
voluntary states — consecration and trust ; these 
are the states to which God responds. Their 
normal expression in devotion to God and hu- 
man well-being are the evidences of the new 
life. Emotional and conventional tests of con- 
version have hurried some into the profession 
of what they have afterwards found to be un- 
real, while they have sent others into the chills 
of despair. 

6. Revival efforts are sometimes unsatisfac- 
tory in their ethical results. The amount of re- 
ligious feeling developed has been greatly in 
excess of the Christian living which has fol- 

42 



Unsatisfactorinsss of Some: Revival, Efforts. 

lowed. "My brethren, these things ought not 
so to be." 3 A genuine revival in a community 
will diminish profanity, dishonesty, tobacco- 
using, and beer-drinking. It will right wrongs, 
heal alienations, and increase the attendance in 
the churches, at the prayer-meetings, and in 
the schools. It will multiply demands for good 
books, and produce a more serious tone in the 
social life of the young people. It will increase 
missionary collections, and stir the souls of 
some young men with a call to the ministry. 
Every reform movement will be strengthened 
by a revival. Indeed, reforms and revivals go 
hand in hand. In 1857 God seemed to pour 
His Spirit most mightily upon Churches which 
were fighting the battles of the slave. God 
bless all forms of aggressive evangelism; but 
we doubt if great revivals which shall awaken 
communities and whole countries are not await- 
ing a united, uncompromising, and aggressive 
Christian movement against a soul-enslaving, 
drunkard-making iniquity, which is more 
shocking to civilization and more insulting to 
heaven than was American slavery at its worst. 



8 Jas. iii, 10. 

43 



"Sardis was famed among the Churches for spiritual 
vitality, and yet the Heart-searcher, who seeth not as 
man seeth, pronounces her dead. How great searchings 
of heart should her case create among even the best of 
us !" — Bible Commentary. 

"Particular virtues, then, whether they are natural 
virtues, or virtues of imitation, do not make the being 
good. There must be some general virtue underneath 
all these which consecrates and roots in him all the par- 
ticular ones." — Mozely. 

"Nor let us think of Sardis as the only city where 
a dead Church was to be found. ... In spite of the 
profession of the Church, many in it are holding on to 
the world. They put on Christian uniform, and then 
fight on the other side." — Pulpit Commentary. 

"A special danger of our age is that we may lose 
perception of the real soul and end of all our labor in 
the multiplied machinery which carries it on. Our very 
Christian activities will lead to decline and death if spir- 
itual life is not growing within in proportion." — Vinet. 

"For why should a man repent of his goodness? 
He may indeed repent of its falsehood, but unhappily, 
the falsehood of it is just the thing he does not see. 
. . . The Pharisee did not know he was a Pharisee; 
if he had known that, he would not have been a Phari- 
see." — Mozely. 



45 



IV. 

In the Church, but Unconverted. 

" I know thy works ; that thou hast a name that thou 
livest, and art dead." — Rev. iii, i. 

I. There are unconverted persons in the mem- 
bership of Churches. 

i. There are those whose spirit and life do 
not create the impression upon others that they 
are Christians. Were the fact of their Church 
relations not known, they would not be sus- 
pected of having made a Christian profession. 
Their acquaintances regard them as Christian 
only in name. 

2. There are those in the Churches who ad- 
mit this fact concerning themselves. Not to 
speak of the few self-accusing souls who, by 
temperament, habitually write hard things 
against themselves, there are those who 
thoughtfully and frankly state that they have 
never realized the essentials of Christian ex- 
perience and life. 

47 



Hai^ Century Messages. 

3. There are those in the Churches who do 
not exhibit, either to themselves or to others, 
spiritual growth. Through months and years 
of their Christian profession, they seem to have 
gained no higher view-point or spiritual power. 
They do not seem moved by hunger for right- 
eousness, or solicitude for the salvation of 
others. 

4. There are those whose tastes seem not to 
have been changed in any perceptible degree, 
as a result of their professed change of heart. 
In their chosen associations, in the books they 
read, in the amusements which they seek, they 
go on as before their professed new life. 

5. The membership of our Churches in- 
cludes some who appear to shun every form 
of self-denial. They seem to act under the 
law of self-interest, if not self-indulgence. 
They will do little which is not agreeable or 
profitable to themselves. They have to be 
coaxed along by appeals to personal profit or 
loss. Even their religion appears to be the in- 
dulgence of a religious sentiment or impulse. 
Hence their seeming piety is fitful and tran- 
sient. It appears to be one of several ways 
in which they seek for "a good time." 

48 



In the Church, but Unconverted. 

We judge no man, but the facts here stated 
will hardly be denied. 

II. How came these unconverted persons to 
assume the Christian profession and take a 
place in the Church? 

i. Not as the result of purposed hypocrisy. 
We believe the number of those who seek con- 
nection with the Church as a pretense to piety 
to be very small. It is possible that some have 
joined the Church with the thought of gaining 
the confidence of good people, or with their 
minds upon business advantages, or to kill 
suspicions of evil conduct; but we think such 
cases are very few. John Wesley thought he 
had met but two out-and-out hypocrites in his 
lifetime. He certainly had wide opportunity 
for observing indications of insincerity. Those 
who are in the Church and unconverted have 
evidently been led in some way to believe that 
they had become Christians. 

2. There are Churches in which Scriptural 
conversion, including evidences of regener- 
ation, is not insisted upon as a condition of 
membership. This was so in the Churches of 
New England long ago. It is true of some 
4 49 



Half Century Messages. 

Churches now. Loyalty to the Church, con- 
formity to its rites, acceptance of its creed, and 
decent behavior, are all that is required. Into 
Churches which institute no tests, and ask no 
questions concerning personal religious expe- 
rience, it will be quite easy for unconverted 
persons to enter. The probationary member- 
ship in the Methodist Episcopal Church has its 
advantages, and it has its dangers. 

3. In Churches in which the preaching for 
any considerable time has been light or sensa- 
tional, there will be unconverted members. 
The pulpits which have sought to amuse and 
entertain, rather than to convince and instruct, 
pulpits in which the themes have been chosen 
for their novelty and their power to excite curi- 
osity, have opened the way to an unconverted 
membership. Church services are too often 
held fast in the sentimental, set to the key of 
"the sweet by and by." In congregations thus 
neglected or misled, persons will come into the 
Church with the least, possible appreciation of 
sin or of repentance and salvation. 

4. Ministers and other Christian workers 
sometimes take the responsibility of telling 
awakened persons that they are converted. In 

50 






In the Church, but Unconverted. 

their anxiety to have every seeker come at once 
into consciousness of salvation, they assume to 
know what both God and the sinner have done. 
In the desire of the seeker to have the evidence 
of conversion, he will take the word of his 
teachers and believe himself converted, rather 
than believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. 

5. Whenever men come into the belief that 
they are converted, and yet have not renounced 
all known sin, they may come into the Church, 
but they will come in without saving grace. 
If they cling to some sinful habit; if they are 
unwilling to know the worst of their cases; if 
they refuse to believe that their habits are 
wicked when there is sufficient evidence of the 
fact, they may work into the belief that they 
are accepted of God, and go into the Church 
unsaved. 

6. Many children are brought to accept 
Christ who, from want of Christian nurture in 
their homes, or from the unspiritual state of 
the Churches with which they are connected, or 
from the insistence of older members upon 
standards of piety inappropriate to child life, 
or from the subtle influence of their social rela- 
tions, wander into the world. Some lose spirit- 

5i 



Haef Century Messages. 

ual life while retaining the outward forms re- 
quired by the Church ; others abandon both life 
and form; still others sit in the silence of re- 
ligious discouragement. All in the Church, 
but without the new life of regeneration. 

7. Nor is this backsliding into the old life 
of the world confined to children. Not a few 
of those who have been longer in the Church 
have been drawn away from Christ by absorp- 
tion in business, schemes of worldly gain, the 
intrigues and ambitions of political life, or the 
snares of social customs. They give to the 
Church their names and something of their sub- 
stance, but their hearts to self-interest and their 
lives to the world. They are still in the Church, 
but out of Christ. 

8. On the part of pastors and official mem- 
bers the desire to see an increase in the member- 
ship of their Churches is intense. Unless the 
motives are carefully watched, there may be 
unhealthful haste in receiving candidates for 
membership. Church officers may see an op- 
portunity to increase the financial strength of 
the society ; a perverted notion as to what con- 
stitutes ministerial success may lead the pastor 
to regard his standing among his brethren as 

52 



In the Church, but Unconverted. 

dependent upon the number of accessions which 
he is able to report, and the evangelist greatly 
desires that his meetings shall be pronounced 
successful. Unconsciously to all parties con- 
cerned, these influences may lead to the recep- 
tion of persons into the Church with too little 
regard to their religious condition. And if the 
spirit of proselytism prevails in a community, 
the question of Scriptural conversion will 
measurably sink out of sight. It is easy thus 
to fill Churches with unconverted members. 

REMARKS. 

1. It is a great wrong, not only to the 
Church, but to the persons themselves when 
they are received into membership without 
proper evidence that they are born from above. 
Not that the same evidences should be insisted 
upon in every case. Large room should be 
given to differences in age, in education, in 
previous personal history, and in temperamental 
peculiarities. But there should be evidence of 
a personal acceptance of Christ. 

2. The unconverted in our Churches should 
not be told simply to dissolve their connection 
with the Church. Churches can not meet their 

53 



Half Century Messages. 

responsibilities in that way. They have been 
invited to their folds, and no effort should be 
spared to lead them to Christ. They should be 
labored with tenderly, lovingly, faithfully. 
Unless their lives become a reproach upon the 
cause, they should be sought out and won for 
the Master. Withdrawal from the Church 
would probably end the influence of the Church 
over them, and perhaps prove the end of all 
effort upon their part to become Christians. 
Their removal from the Church should be the 
last dire necessity. 

3. Persons who are in the Church and un- 
converted are in the midst of dangers. They 
may trust to their Church relations as a kind 
of guarantee of salvation, at least of final sal- 
vation. They may be unwilling to receive truth 
appropriate to their condition, or they may give 
place to pride of consistency, and conclude to 
go on as they are, in a kind of feigned religious 
life. Either is a way fraught with peril. 

4. Unconverted Church members should be 
frank and open with their pastors and Christian 
friends concerning their spiritual states. They 
have too much at stake to be shy or in the least 
degree insincere. They should not allow them- 

54 



In the Church, but Unconverted. 

selves to occupy for a day a position false to 
their convictions. An immediate life-surrender 
to Christ will bring them into a Divine fellow- 
ship, and to "peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." A student once said to his pas- 
tor : "I want my name taken off the Church 
record. I have found out that I am not a 
Christian; I was never converted." The pastor 
replied : "No matter now about the Church 
record; there is something better for us first. 
Let us tell God all about it." They did so, the 
young man closing his prayer with these words : 
"Now, Lord, make thorough work with me this 
time, and do give it to me as soon as you can." 
Then and there began his new life. He had 
nothing more to say about the Church record. 



55 



"The 'grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love 
of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with 
you all."— Paul. 

"A Welsh convert once said that he believed Jesus 
was a Welshman, for He always talked to him in 
Welsh."— Anon. 

"Man yearns for more than the sense of his de- 
pendence upon One greater than himself; he asks for 
the sense of nearness of One who is kin with himself. 
If man can not creep into the heart of God, he will 
crouch close under the shadow of those who seem to 
him Godlike." — Permanent Elements in Religion, p. 132. 

"Whenever we make God a sacred confidant, and 
disclose to Him all those secret things which we would 
confide to no other being in the universe, then it is that 
we are in communion with Him. . . . O the un- 
speakable confidence which the soul feels, when it dis- 
closes to God the deepest, darkest, profoundest neces- 
sities of the whole being!" — C. G. Finney. 



57 



"The infinite greatness of God is a truth which, if 
it stands alone, confuses, because it dazzles the mind. 
Transcendent greatness is soon thought to be unap- 
proachable. . . . The counterbalancing truth of the 
eternal kinship between the infinitely great and the infin- 
itely little is forgotten. God and man can meet, because 
there is a Divine Sonship." — Permanent Elements in 
Religion, p. no. 

"A man must be persuaded that he is near to God, 
and that God is near to him. Men have had that per- 
suasion, and the records of religious experience tell us 
that they have had a conviction of fellowship with God 
of so vivid and real a kind as to change their conduct 
and purify their life. The record of such experience 
is so wide and so common that it is as well attested as 
any experience can be." — Theism in the Light of Present 
Science, p. 295. 

"Deepening acquaintance with God is the one all- 
embracing problem of the Christian life. Every step of 
this is a personal relation, and its laws are the laws of 
friendship. . . . Where this is not kept clear, some 
mystical experience of our own may be exalted, out of 
all due proportion, into an authority that is supposed 
not only to make us quite independent of our brethren, 
but even at the height of our raptures to enable us to 
do without Christ." — Reconstruction in Theology, p. 174. 



58 



V. 
Communion with God. 

"And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with 
him." — Gen. xvii, 3. 

It is here stated that God talked with a 
man. It is also implied that a man talked with 
God, for it is said that God talked with Abram, 
not merely to him. And this is only one of 
many instances in which God and this same 
man talked with each other. This conversation 
with God seems to have been a common experi- 
ence with Abram. Nor was he the only man 
of whom this fact is stated. In Bible history 
his case was not exceptional; only moderately 
remarkable. All the great characters of sacred 
history stand before us as those who had 
friendly intercourse with God. They talked 
with Him. 

But was this communion with God a priv- 

59 



Haef Century Messages. 

ilege peculiar to the men of ancient time? Or 
does God talk with men in our time — in all 
times? Does God desire to speak with men? 
Do men need to speak with God, and do they 
need to know that God speaks with them? Is 
communion with God essential to Christian ex- 
perience? Does Christian life include inter- 
course and loving fellowship with God ? 

By communion with God we do not mean 
a theory concerning God ; not a mere thinking 
about God; not any dreamy religious revery; 
we mean a human soul in a state of intelligent 
and friendly intercourse with God. We mean 
a state in which the personal presence of God 
is recognized, we may say realized, and con- 
fided in ; a state in which He is constantly con- 
sulted and in which His guidance is confidently 
expected. Is this state ours in Christ Jesus? 
Is it important that this should become a con- 
stant feature of our spiritual life? 

I. Communion with God is Possible to 
Christians now. 

i. The character of God intimates this pos- 
sibility. He is a person, and He can speak. If 
He has given us the power of speech, He has 
60 



Communion with God. 

certainly that power Himself. He is a Spirit, 
and can speak to spirits whom He has created. 
He loves, and hence seeks fellowship with those 
whom He loves. He loves man, and desires 
companionship with him. Man's highest wel- 
fare is in his acquaintance with God, and this 
a loving Creator seeks. He is a Father, and 
would have His children live in blissful fellow- 
ship with Himself. He is the great Giver, and 
would give Himself to man. He is infinitely 
self-sacrificing, and would condescend to the 
low estate of man. 

2. The nature of man indicates the same 
possibility. It is as true of man as of God that 
he is a person. God is a Spirit, and so is man. 
That man Avas made in the image of God was 
not a mere figure of speech. In orginial con- 
stitution there was a kinship of nature between 
man and his Creator. That the one is finite 
while the other is infinite, indicates no impos- 
sibility of fellowship; a child can commune 
with the profoundest philosopher. In his meas- 
ure, man can think God's thoughts ; he can feel 
as God feels, and he can have the same object 
in his activity. The same motives may influ- 
ence him; both God and man may be united 
61 



Hale Century Messages. 

in the same work. Communion between them 
must be a possibility. 

3. Old Testament history presents this 
view. We first see man in innocence and in 
the companionship of his Creator. The para- 
dise of Eden was not so much in landscapes as 
in this Divine fellowship. Sin worked then, 
as it has ever since done, separation of man 
from this friendly intercourse with God. The 
Tabernacle in the wilderness was the "Tent of 
Meeting." 1 There the people met with Je- 
hovah. The offerings which were there pre- 
sented signified the approach of man to God, 
and were joined with priestly offices and serv- 
ices which indicated their acceptance. Peace- 
offerings followed sin-offerings. The whole 
Mosaic priesthood was a system of mediation 
between God and man. 

4. The New Testament maintains and ex- 
alts the same view. It lifts the idea of inter- 
course with God to the plane of personal and 
spiritual communion, with no intervening rites, 
and with the "one Mediator between God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus." 2 This Divine fel- 
lowship is promised to every believer through 

» Exod. xxxix, 32. a 1 Tim. ii, 5. 

63 



Communion with God. 

"the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love 
of God, and the communion of the Holy 
Ghost." 3 God is a speaking God. He spake 
in old time unto the fathers, and now speaks 
to us. The distinguishing mark of false gods 
is the fact that they do not speak to their wor- 
shipers. As with the prophets of Baal in the 
days of Ahab, their worshipers cry unto them, 
but "there is no voice, nor any that answer/' 4 
They are "dumb idols." 5 

5. All spiritual worship implies communion 
with God. Words, songs, bodily postures, 
readings, ceremonies of whatever nature, fall 
short of worship if there be wanting personal 
communion of hearts with God. The Lord's 
Supper is worship only when the communicants 
"discern the Lord's body." 6 Prayer is worship 
when the soul engages in conversation with the 
Lord. Worship in prayer is not necessarily 
confined to petitions for needed blessings. It 
may include expressions of adoration, thanks- 
giving for mercies, reviews of God's dealings; 
whatever the heart may be led to speak of in 
the conscious presence of God. A child who 



3 2 Cor. xiii, 14. 4 1 Kings xviii, 26. & x cor. xii, 2. 

6 1 Cor. xi, 29. 

63 



Haee Century Messages. 

never speaks to his parents excepting when ask- 
ing for something which he can not hope to get 
elsewhere, is not in any true sense in commun- 
ion with them. Said an aged Christian, "It is 
such a comfort to me to talk things over with 
God." The greatest thing in answer to prayer 
is the holy confidence which habitually takes 
everything to God, and trustfully accepts every- 
thing from Him. 

6. Man longs for intercourse with God. 
This longing is as native to man as the cry 
of a lost child for its father. It is in men who 
do not understand its meaning. We are dis- 
tressed if we think that Heaven makes no re- 
sponse to our prayers. Silence on the part of 
God is construed as an omen of rejection. 
King Saul was filled with forebodings of dis- 
aster because "the Lord answered him not, 
neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by proph- 
ets." 7 He resorted to the witch of Endor, as 
many in all times, not excepting our own, have 
grasped at superstitions, because God was si- 
lent, and the unquenchable desire to hear from 
Him was unsatisfied. If there are men who 
never pray, never recognize their dependence; 

f i Sam. xxviii, 6. 

6 4 



Communion with God. 

men who never really do any business with 
God, they are not in the normal condition of 
man. Things are not right when children are 
not on speaking terms with their Father. 

II. The: Importance of Communion with 
God should be Realized. 

i. It is the great satisfying element in re- 
ligious . experience. He who has this Divine 
fellowship has "the peace of God which passeth 
all understanding." 8 It is this which gives the 
heart rest in loss and sorrow, in criticism and 
blame. "Religion is communion with God." 9 
Christian experience is not a thing; it is the 
realization of the presence of God. In this 
friendship of God is the home of the soul. 

2. Communion with God breaks the fasci- 
nating power of worldly life. It introduces the 
soul to its highest joys. Nothing of earth can 
ever be regarded as of equal value. A loving 
intimacy with God through Jesus Christ puts 
to shame all the intoxicating pleasures of sin- 
ful life. It enables the Christian to look with 



8 Philip, iv, 7. 

9 Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief, p. 18. 



65 



Hale Century Messages. 

pity upon those who know nothing better. It 
enables him to say : 

"As by the light of opening day 
The stars are all concealed, 
So earthly pleasures fade away 
When Jesus is revealed." 

3. Communion with God develops a proper 
Christian individuality. No one who com- 
munes with God will shape his life by the wind 
or the tide. He will not lose himself in the 
mass. His converse with God will save him 
from striking an average of public sentiment in 
questions of duty. It will bring out his best 
possibilities. Living with God, his life will 
never float with the current. He will not be a 
slave, either to the views or the customs of 
others. The will of God, as he understands it, 
is the law and the prophets of his life. 

4. Communion with God is the destroyer 
of doubts. A Christian man once complained 
to his minister of the doubts which continually 
harassed him concerning the Bible and his 
own religious state. The pastor replied, "The 
trouble with you, brother, is that you do n't 
half pray." With the many, doubting comes 
from having so little to do with God. Fighting 

66 



Communion with God. 

doubts with the head while the heart is cold, 
gains no permanent victory. One real inter- 
view with God dissolves the doubts of a life- 
time. The faith which has been baptized with 
Divine fellowship will not be easily shaken by 
philosophical subtleties. The Christian be- 
liever may not be able to answer all the soph- 
istries of unbelief in the terms of the schools, 
but he can always say: "That which we have 
seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye 
also may have fellowship with us; and truly 
our fellowship is with the Father, and with His 
Son, Jesus Christ." 10 Communion with God 
makes Him more real to the mind than any- 
thing besides. 



10 1 John i, 5. 



67 



"To strike a proper balance between the rational and 
the emotional, is the most serious difficulty of the intel- 
lectual life." — Osier. 

"An emotional state is not favorable to sharp intel- 
lectual discrimination. In proportion to the intensity of 
the emotion, the attention is distracted from mental 
processes." — Hill's Psychology, p. 272. 

"It does not always depend upon you to feel, but 
it does always depend upon you to will. So aim always 
to will right, and leave it to God the while to quicken 
your feelings." — Fenelon's Letters, p. 44. 

"Feelings exist only when their specific causes are 
acting. As the causes of feeling are constantly chang- 
ing, the feelings change. No state of feeling can per- 
sist uninterruptedly for a long time." — Hill's Psychol- 
ogy, p. 222. 

"Emotion is produced as the accompaniment of 
Ideas. . . . Ideal presence is the condition of emo- 
tion. The objects to which the ideas relate may be real 
or unreal ; the effect is the same, if we surrender our- 
selves to the illusion." — Ibid, p. 253. 

"To know is not itself a moral act, yet it is neces- 
sary to moral agency. The faculty of feeling is not 
per se moral. The amotions arise necessarily from acts 
of knowledge, and may be neither meritorious nor 
blameworthy." — Theoretical Ethics, p. 101. 



69 



"In large sections of the Christian Church, the cru- 
cial question respecting the Christian life is, 'How do 
you feel?' . . . The religiousness which rests upon 
this foundation very easily coexists with a high degree 
of selfishness." — Ruling Ideas of the Present Age, p. 65. 

"The substance of religious experiences as far tran- 
scends the emotional forms as a man transcends the 
clothes he wears. . . . Would you understand the 
emotional aspects of religious experiences? Do not as- 
scribe them to the inscrutable ways of God, but to the 
ascertainable differences in men's mental constitutions." 
— The Spiritual Life, p. 140. 

"How many pray eagerly for a blessing without 
stopping to think whether it is more faith, or charity, 
or humility, or courage, or patience that they need? How 
apt are such persons to mistake the exhilaration of the 
animal spirits for heavenly communications? A calm 
and collected mind is highly favorable to devotion, and 
a thorough insight into the wickedness of the heart is 
better, in this state of probation, than the raptures of the 
third heavens."— Rev. Stephen Olin, D. D. 



70 



VI. 

The: Reugious Feeijngs. 

"Who, when they have heard the word, immediately 
receive it with gladness, yet have no root in themselves, 
and so endure but for a time." — Mark iv, 16, 17. 

Of the four classes who heard Jesus, one 
only was lastingly benefited. With the first 
named His teachings passed from their minds 
with the occasion, leaving no trace of effect. 
Another class were more deeply moved, but 
allowed the fascinations of world life to lead 
them astray. These "stony-ground hearers'' 
had religious impulses. Their feelings were 
quickly awakened. Their religion was a re- 
ligious gladness. They were happy, and that 
being all they cared for, they had no root ; their 
religiousness soon evaporated. 

I. In the religious life of many, too great em- 
phasis is placed upon the element of feeling. 

1. This is seen when conviction of sin is 
regarded as consisting wholly or chiefly in an 

7i 



Hale Century Messages. 

intense feeling of guilt and danger. Convic- 
tion is an intellectual apprehension of truth. 
Conviction of sin is the knowledge of the fact 
that we are sinners. When one knows his duty, 
and knows that he is not doing it, he is con- 
victed of sin. However these facts may be 
made known to him, they are intellectual ap- 
prehensions. The degree of feeling which will 
be awakened in him as the result of perceiving 
these truths concerning himself will greatly de- 
pend upon his past life, his mental constitution, 
and upon the clearness with which he sees the 
truth. In any case his feelings are no part of 
his conviction of sin. A misplaced stress upon 
the emotional element in conviction of sin has 
often led to a perilous "waiting for feeling," 
when duty has demanded instant action in har- 
mony with existing convictions. 

2. A similar notion is frequently enter- 
tained in reference to what constitutes repent- 
ance. This is thought to consist largely in re- 
gretful and remorseful feelings. Some appear 
to attach great value to such feelings, as if they 
constituted an appeal to the Divine sympathy. 
Their great fear is that they do not feel deeply 
enough. The truth is, regret, remorse, self- 
72 



The: Rsugious Fsexings. 

condemnation — not one of them is repentance. 
Combine them all, and add self -despair ; still 
they are no part of repentance. These feelings 
may precede repentance in varying degrees, 
but are not essential to it, and the different de- 
grees are wholly immaterial. They may all ex- 
ist where there is no repentance, and true re- 
pentance may be exercised without their in- 
tenser forms. The essential point to be reached 
in true repentance is the purposed abandonment 
of all sin — the surrender of the whole life to 
Christ. This being a voluntary state, it can 
be entered upon with much feeling, with little 
feeling, or with no perceptible amount of feel- 
ing whatever. Those who take deep feeling 
for repentance will generally fail to repent. 

3. As repentance is with many regarded as 
consisting largely in feelings of distress, so re- 
ligious experience is often regarded as nearly 
synonymous with religious happiness. Conver- 
sions are frequently marked and dated by the 
fact of a change in religious feeling. Such a 
change of feeling very naturally results from 
the knowledge of forgiveness of sins, in what- 
ever way that knowledge may be received ; but 
it is not the essential in conversion. A genu- 

73 



Hale Century Messages. 

ine religious experience may, without doubt, 
begin with a period of rapturous emotion, and 
there is just as little doubt that it may, and 
often does, precede such an experience. It is 
equally true also that many cases of genuine 
conversion exist, the beginnings of which were 
never marked by any given hours of spiritual 
ecstasy. 

4. When blissful emotions are taken as the 
most important evidences of regenerating grace 
at the first, they are usually received thereafter 
as the test and gauge of personal piety. The 
more of rapture, the deeper the experience, is 
the conclusion. Any sensible loss in religious 
feeling for a time is construed as evidence of 
the Divine displeasure, or the sign of back- 
sliding. Religious life thus becomes, in not a 
few cases, a perplexing struggle to maintain a 
certain standard of personal religious enjoy- 
ment. Religious worry and vacillation are the 
natural results. 

5. Many seem to have no other conception 
of the "witness of the Spirit" than that it is 
a wave of joyful emotion. Exultant joy may 
well arise from the consciousness of acceptance 
with God; it could hardly be otherwise. But 

74 



The: Rexigious Fexungs. 

emotions, joyful or sorrowful, are the results 
of ideas in the mind. The Holy Spirit wit- 
nesses to a fact; viz., that "we are the children 
of God." 1 He does this through our ordinary 
channels of thought. He enables us to knozv 
that we are forgiven and accepted of God. Joy- 
ful emotions follow upon this knowledge, in 
various degrees, and with unnumbered modifi- 
cations. The exultant feeling is not the "wit- 
ness of the Spirit," but the result of that Divine 
illumination of mind in which we are enabled 
to know that we are the children of God. 

6. Prayers for the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost are common to almost all prayer-meet- 
ings, and, in the intent of those who offer them, 
are certainly most appropriate. But who that 
is accustomed to attend these services has not 
frequently observed that thrilling and rapturous 
feeling appears to be taken as the evidence, if 
not the very essence, of this Divine gift? It 
would seem to be often forgotten that the Holy 
Spirit has as much to do with the intellectual 
as with the emotional in man. He enables 
men to see quite as much as to feel. He quick- 
ens all the powers of mind. He made Bezaleel 



1 Rom. viii, 16. 

75 



Half Century Messages. 

a genius in architecture; 2 He made David a 
diplomat and a warrior. 3 Prophets were first 
of all "Seers." 4 Nothing is said as to the feel- 
ings of the company at Pentecost, but it is very 
clear that they saw as they had not seen before. 
They discovered the nature of the kingdom of 
God; they discerned their time, and they read 
their Scriptures in a new light. Paul gives a 
wonderful list of subjects concerning which 
those will have knowledge, to whom the 
"Father of glory" gives the "spirit of wisdom 
and understanding." 5 An emotional life which 
is begotten of genuine spiritual transformation 
is certainly of great value, but when fervid re- 
ligious feeling is regarded as the essential in 
spiritual states, when it is sought as the evi- 
dence and gauge of piety, it becomes a snare 
and a stumbling-block to many who should be 
shown a more excellent way. 

7. As a further indication of this undue 
importance given to religious feeling, we notice 
the fact that, to a very large extent, the Chris- 
tian testimony, which is generally given in the 
devotional meetings of the Church, is a relation 



2 Exod. xxxv, 30, 31. 3 1 Sam. xvi, 13. 4 i Sam. ix, 9. 

6 Eph. i, 17-20. 



76 



Ths Rexigious Feexings. 

of personal feeling. This is done with good 
intent, though sometimes perhaps from habit 
or imitation, but it means little that is impor- 
tant to the Church and world. It falls immeas- 
urably below the New Testament idea of Chris- 
tian prophesying. Christian testimony should 
be a power for good, but it will not become 
powerful so long as it begins and ends with 
a relation of personal feelings, enjoyments, and 
desires. 

8. And there are some well-meaning people 
who, because of this undue valuation of relig- 
ious feeling, take their feelings as their guides 
in matters of duty. Duty with them lies in the 
direction of their strongest feeling. What they 
feel like doing, they regard as that which they 
are called to do, and waive aside that to which 
their feelings do not prompt them. It is well 
if they do not go one step further, and regard 
their impulses as the suggestions of the Holy 
Spirit. 

REMARKS. 

I. Religious life in which the element of 
feeling is unduly emphasized will generally be 
transient or fluctuating. By psychological ne- 
cessity, all highly emotional states are transient. 

77 



Half Century Messages. 

2. When the supreme attention of the 
Christian is turned towards his states of feel- 
ing, he is liable to overlook the importance of 
his outward life. This brings upon him the 
reproach of inconsistency, to his own grief and 
the injury of the cause he would promote. 

3. It is well-known that highly pleasurable 
emotions may be induced by causes which are 
psychological or physiological. Religious emo- 
tions are not exceptions to this fact. He who 
has studied this subject but a little will be care- 
ful and prayerful in interpreting his own relig- 
ious feelings. "There is real danger in our best 
feelings as well as in our worst, and both alike 
need to be controlled by good sense." It is 
questionable even if highly emotional states are 
more profitable in religion than in respect to 
other things. 

4. Matthew Arnold defined religion as 
"morality touched by feeling." Herbert Spen- 
cer said that "religion is a feeling of wonder 
in the presence of the unknown." Christianity 
declares religion to be a voluntary devotion of 
one's being to the good of mankind according 
to the will of God, and a continual trust in 
Jesus Christ for salvation. 

78 



"Whatever may be the extent of inherited tendency, 
responsibility relates to our volitions." — Hill. 

"The good deed without effort is the sign of a higher 
goodness; the good deed with effort of a higher virtue. 
For there is no virtue in the goodness which has in- 
volved no effort." — Carpenter. 

"The Bible never says that faith is a gift. There is 
a voluntary element in it. It is something to be done 
by the exercise of an inward power. It is the coming of 
the soul to Christ." — Van Dyke. 

"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should 
die? saith the Lord God. ... I have no pleasure in 
the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God ; where- 
fore turn yourselves and live ye." — Bible. 

"I am as certain that I am free, to speak or not to 
speak, to act or not to act, to do this or the contrary, 
as I am of my own existence. I have the power to 
choose and do good, as well as evil ; I am free to choose 
whom I will serve." — Wesley. 



79 



"Life is self-change to meet environment. . . . 
We are to tell men that though much has been deter- 
mined for them by causes beyond their control, — their 
circumstances, their talents, their faculties, — one thing 
has not been determined, and that is what they will do 
with them."— Van Dyke. 

"Some persons seem disposed to be passive, to wait 
for some mysterious influence, like an electric shock, 
to change their hearts. But in this attitude, and with 
these views, they may wait till the day of judgment, 
and God will never do their duty for them. The fact is, 
God requires you to turn, and what He requires of you 
He can not do for you. It must be your own voluntary 
act." — Finney. 

"Love to God and love to fellow-men — this is the 
universally attainable in religious experience. Yet this 
law is liable to be misunderstood unless we go back to 
the Greek and observe that the verb translated love does 
not mean 'to be fond of/ does not primarily designate 
a state of feeling, but a state of will, an attitude of mind 
that can be voluntarily assumed by all persons, irre- 
spective of temperamental and other peculiarities." — Coe. 



80 



VII. 

The Human Will as a Factor in Salva- 
tion. 

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; if any man 
hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, 
and will sup with him, and he with Me." — Rev. iii, 20. 

Them are opposite and extreme views con- 
cerning the relation of the human to the Divine 
in salvation. With some, religion consists in 
human doings. Little is made of sin or of re- 
demption. To be a Christian is to do about as 
well as you can. 

There are others who seem to expect God 
to do all that is done in the matter. They are 
in the attitude of waiting for Him to do some- 
thing more. They conceive of religion as the 
result of being wrought upon. At most they 
desire, and God must do the rest. 

There is a better view which insists that 
both human and Divine agencies are essential 
6 81 



Half Century Messages. 

to saving religion. These agencies do not work 
separately and in turns; they co-operate. Of 
the Divine working we are assured; we have 
little need to ask for it. To secure the human 
co-operation is the problem. If we mistake 
not, the passive in religion is often so empha- 
sized as to relieve men of a just conviction of 
their responsibility. 

I. Nots the Office of the Human Will 
in Personal Salvation. 

i. We do not mean by an act of will, a wish 
merely. We do not mean by a state of the will, 
a standing desire. We mean a voluntary act 
and attitude of the mind. It is that which car- 
ries in it intention and purpose. It is funda- 
mental choice. It includes an "I will," or an 
"I will not." 

2. The attitude of the will has much to do 
with what men believe or disbelieve. It is very 
difficult to convince men of truth which they 
are unwilling to believe. They readily accept 
scientific truth, for, if received, it requires no 
voluntary change in them. On the contrary, 
religious truth demands reformation and re- 
generation. If they refuse to live the truth, 
8s 



Ths Human Wiix as a Factor in Salvation. 

their beliefs will naturally take the direction of 
their unconsecrated wills. Not a little of talk- 
ative infidelity is born of suppressed convictions 
of duty. 

3. It is the will which in a great measure 
determines the degree of conviction of sin. 
Hearing is, with the many, a condition of con- 
viction; but men may hear or not hear as they 
choose. Attention is necessary to a realization 
of the truth, but attention is a voluntary mat- 
ter. Men may search for truth, or they may 
refuse to make any effort in that direction; 
what they find or fail to find will correspond 
with their prevailing purpose. They may ac- 
cept awakening truth, and thus be led to re- 
pentance ; or they may reject it because it forces 
them to self-condemnation. Men's ears have 
often been dull of hearing because "their eyes 
they have closed," under the demand to "turn 
again and be healed." (Matt, xiii, 15.) This 
closing the eyes is by the will, and prevents con- 
viction of sin. 

4. Action of the will is the essential in re- 
pentance. Scriptural repentance is not a feel- 
ing; it is submission to God. Remorse and 
agony and despair are not repentance ; they may 

83 



Half Century Messages. 

exist without repentance, and repentance may- 
exist without them. Neither tears nor groans 
constitute penitence, nor do they in all cases 
evidence the fact. True repentance consists in 
renouncing our way, and in the acceptance of 
God's way. It is the purposed abandonment 
of all which is seen to be sin, and the acceptance 
of the will of God as the law of life. All this 
is wholly voluntary. It is right action of the 
will power. Men can do this, and they can 
refuse to do it. It can be done with deep feel- 
ing, and it can be done with no thought what- 
ever of what the feelings are. Feelings in vari- 
ous forms may come unsought and depart un- 
bidden ; but repentance is self-determined. 

5. Accepting Christ as a personal Savior is 
also a voluntary matter. We can accept Him, 
and none can hinder us; we can reject Him, 
and none can compel us. Faith, like repent- 
ance, is not a feeling; it is a voluntary appro- 
priation of Christ, as He is revealed to the soul. 
It is not something to be waited for and experi- 
enced; it is something to be done. "This is the 
work of God, that ye believe on Him whom 
He hath sent." (John vi, 29.) Repentance 
and acceptance of Christ are commanded. 

84 



The; Human Wiix as a Factor in Salvation. 

They could not be justly commanded if they 
were not voluntary. 

6. It will be readily admitted that men are 
never convinced of sin, nor do they repent and 
believe, without the Holy Spirit. They do not 
see their sin, nor apprehend Christ as a Savior 
but in the light of His revealing presence. But 
they are not without His presence. The Spirit 
works long with those who refuse to repent. 
His work is persuasive, not compulsory. The 
concurrent action of man's voluntary powers is 
as necessary to salvation as is the work of the 
Holy Spirit. Man can not be made holy by 
anything which God can do for him or in him, 
while he remains in a passive state 

REMARKS. 

i. There is a manifest tendency at the pres- 
ent time to place an undue emphasis upon pas- 
sive states of mind, and a consequent want of 
stress upon voluntary attitudes. In prayer God 
is often addressed as though He had power 
enough to secure the salvation of sinners if He 
would only bring it to bear upon them. As if 
sinners could be turned into saints by the exer- 
cise of Divine power alone ! This is just what 

85 



Half Century Messages. 

the impenitent like to hear. It seems to relieve 
them of immediate responsibility ; they are wait- 
ing for God's power to sweep them into the 
kingdom. 

2. In efforts to awaken Church members to 
a sense of obligation, the congregations are 
often told that, when the Church gets "power," 
the wicked will come to Christ in crowds. This 
pleases the unsaved; they want an excuse for 
waiting, and they have it in the notion that 
they are sure to come in when the Church gets 
right. They love to have the responsibility of 
their salvation transferred from themselves to 
professed Christians. 

3. In some "altar services" the religious 
feelings, whether of distress or joy, are treated 
as of special, if not supreme, importance. They 
gauge conviction; they date conversion; they 
interpret the witness of the Spirit; they even 
certify entire sanctification. Cases unusually 
demonstrative of feeling are noted as special 
indications of the work of the Spirit. As re- 
sults, some believe themselves regenerated 
when their change has been only passive and 
superficial, to be counted as backsliders the next 
year, and young converts begin their religious 

86 



The: Human Wiix as a Factor in Salvation. 

life with the notion that their piety is measured 
by degrees of emotional fervor. If we rightly 
read the Church life of our time, the most 
prominent cause of its shortcomings is the fact 
that many of our members have been led to be- 
lieve themselves Christians from changes ex- 
perienced in their passive states. They have at- 
tached the greatest importance to mental phe- 
nomena which, in conditions which often exist, 
may have been psychological and pathological, 
rather than the direct work of the Holy Spirit. 
4. In our ordinary prayer services the same 
tendency may be easily observed. "Create in 
me a clean heart, O God !" is a prayer often and 
appropriately offered; but the admonition, 
"Make you a new heart and a new spirit," is 
less frequently a prayer-meeting topic. "Lord, 
make us humble." Yes, but "humble your- 
selves," is the Scriptural condition of possessing 
humility. (Jas. iv, 10.) We sing, "Consecrate 
me, Lord," but half forget that the Bible tells 
us to consecrate ourselves. "Lord, cleanse us 
from all sin," is a prayer to which every Chris- 
tian can respond, Amen, but it will not be an- 
swered unless we "cleanse ourselves from all 
nlthiness of the flesh and spirit." (2 Cor. 

87 



Half Century Messages. 

vii, I.) "Lord, make us clean," but "wash 
you; make you clean." Our revisers have done 
us good service by changing the passive, "be 
converted," in the several places in the New 
Testament, into the active, "turn," and "turn 
again." Men will be converted when they con- 
vert. We shall have repentance when we re- 
pent; we shall have faith when we believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

5. It follows that there is no insuperable 
difficulty in the way of any one who will be- 
come a Christian. No man, no number of men, 
no circumstances can block his way. Nothing 
keeps or can keep the soul from God but a per- 
verse will. Change, as you can and should, the 
supreme object and aim of your life ; elect Jesus 
Christ to rule over and in you ; accept Him to 
save you, and you will be as certain to be saved 
as that God will not lie. 

6. On the other hand, any soul can resist 
the strongest influences which can be brought 
to bear upon him. "Irresistible grace," is a 
delusion and mockery. Christ claims no power 
to save a sinner who does not voluntarily "come 
unto God by Him." (Heb. vii, 25.) Never 
till then, but always then, will a sinner be saved. 

88 



The Human Wm as a Factor in Salvation. 

7. It follows that every man is responsible 
for his sinful state. He is wholly responsible 
for this, and will be equally responsible for his 
final destiny. Christians should be exceedingly 
careful not to relieve the conscience of an un- 
saved soul of a sense of this responsibility. He 
should never be told that he needs more convic- 
tion or deeper feeling. He should be shown 
that his duty is to surrender himself to Christ 
at once without conditions; that to wait for 
prompting feelings in the presence of appre- 
hended obligations, is a wicked procrastination. 
He should be made to see that he can not put 
God under obligations to him by agonies or 
vows or gifts or prayers ; that surrender to the 
will of God is the first right thing which it is 
possible for him to do. That is a stubborn sin- 
ner who groans and rages before he yields to 
God. His distress is a sure indication of self- 
will and impenitence. Whole-hearted submis- 
sion to God would banish his bitterness of 
spirit, and open his way to the sin-forgiving 
Savior. 



89 



The old heathen cartman who prayed to Hercules 
to lift his cart out of the mud, was told by the god to put 
his own shoulder to the wheel. 

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest 
thou unto Me? Speak unto the children of Israel, that 
they go forward." — Ex. xiv, 15. 

"It is ill treatment of God, not to expect Him to ful- 
fill His own promises. An unexpecting appeal of prayer 
ought to be expecting a denial." — The True Believer, 
p. 221. 

"There are millions of people all over the world who 
are devoutly praying for help in doing wrong. What 
they need is not more religion, but a better philosophy 
of life." — Ruling Ideas of the Present Age, p. 91. 

"A superstitious religion is always desiring to have 
God on its side ; but an ethical religion is always study- 
ing to be on God's side. . . . Let us be careful about 
our prayers. They show our hearts to God, and ought 
to reveal them to ourselves." — Gospel of Common Sense, 
P. 197. 



9* 



"For instance, we ask for money; and we expect 
an answer of happiness. But we do not get happiness ; 
we only get money, which is a wholly different thing. 
We ask for popularity and reputation, and we expect 
these gifts, when received, to last; but we have asked 
for something whose very nature is that it does not last. 
It is like asking for a soap-bubble and expecting to get 
a billiard-ball." — Francis G. Peabody. 

"We should live and pray for the same thing. We 
pray against the world, but live for it. We pray against 
pride and ambition, but nurture them all the day long; 
against appetite, but pamper it; against temptation, but 
brave it. This is in fact an insult upon God, and acting 
as if we thought we could impose upon Him. 

"Many pray for and live against their salvation. 
They call on God to sanctify them, and then do whatever 
comes in their way to defile the Spirit's temple. 

"Parents pray, and beg their ministers to pray for 
the conversion of their children; they weep and sigh, 
but do not restrain or train them, but leave the whole 
matter to God."— Rev. Stephen Olin, D. D. 



Q2 



VIII. 

Unanswered Prayers. 

"Ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask and re- 
ceive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it 
upon your lusts." — Jas. iv, 2, 3. 

HERE are two surprising statements: (1) 
That some persons do not pray; (2) That 
some who do pray, do it in such states of mind 
that their prayers are not answered. Strange 
that any man should live without prayer. 
Weakness, want, sinfulness, and unreached 
ideals, all suggest to any considerate soul the 
necessity of help from God. Divine encourage- 
ments present prayer as an inestimable priv- 
ilege — the privilege of all. Who would part 
with his right to pray ? For what would a man 
promise never to pray? It is significant that 
only those who do not pray deny the utility of 
prayer. But what right have those who do not 
pray to tell others who do pray that it does no 

93 



Half Century Messages. 

good ? Becoming modesty should restrain such 
from pretending to know the uselessness of that 
which they have never tried. 

But is it not strange that so much which we 
call prayer is apparently unanswered? Does 
not God "give to all men liberally, and up- 
braideth not?" 1 Did not Jesus say, "Ask and 
ye shall receive?" 2 Is not the Heavenly Father 
more willing than earthly parents to give good 
gifts unto His children ? 3 And is He not "able 
to do exceeding abundantly above all that we 
can ask or think?" 4 Why, then, should there 
be any unanswered prayers ? 

I. Prayer is Sometimes Answered when 
We Assume that it is Not. 

i. When God says, "No" it is as really an 
answer as when He says "Yes." We are wont 
to call that only an answer to prayer in which 
we see our particular requests granted. When 
what we ask is denied us, we say there is no 
answer from God. In our ignorance we may 
have asked for that which God could not wisely 
and consistently give. The answer came in a 
refusal to grant our requests. It was an answer 



yames i 5. 2 Matt. vii, 7. 3 Matt. vii, n. 4 Eph. iii, 20. 

94 



Unanswered Prayers 

of God. We can not know all that God knows 
of the relations of events, and it is doubtless as 
true of us as it was of the sons of Zebedee, that 
we often know not what we ask. 5 We may 
grieve the heart of our Lord by asking for that 
which He sees would injure us and others, and 
when He would have us see this we accuse Him 
of silence or indifference. 

2. Prayer is not always unanswered when 
not answered immediately. In cases in which 
prayer is unmistakably answered there may be 
good reasons why answer is delayed. We may 
but poorly realize what it is to pray. Heaven 
waits for us to reach something like proper 
views of this most exalted exercise in which we 
ever engage. In answers to prayer God gives 
a kind of indorsement of the states of mind 
which we entertain while we are in prayer. It 
would not be wise in Him, nor good for us, 
were He to appear to sanction that which is 
wrong in us. Answer to our prayers may in- 
volve the voluntary activity of others besides 
ourselves. This is necessarily the case in inter- 
cessory prayer. The movements of the heav- 
enly powers are resisted on the earth. 6 Wait- 

5 Matt, xx, 22. Dan. x, 12, 13. 

95 



Half Century Messages. 

ing is a needful grace, but difficult to exercise. 
It evinced the great faith of Abraham. 7 God 
bears long with His own elect; "nevertheless 
He will avenge them speedily." 8 

3. We often count prayer as unanswered 
because the answer is not in the manner we had 
anticipated. We are inclined to intense literal- 
ism in our interpretations of answers to prayer. 
We make up our minds beforehand just how 
our prayers will be answered, if answered at 
all, and we recognize no answer but that which 
is in our own thought. It often occurs that 
God sees a better way than we had imagined. 
His answer introduces us to things higher and 
richer than we had asked or thought. Paul 
prayed for deliverance from the embarrassment 
of the "thorn in the flesh;" he found the an- 
swer, not in its removal, but in an increased 
measure of the power of Christ resting upon 
him, which enabled him to "glory in his infirm- 
ities." 9 He prayed for a prosperous journey 
to Rome, "by the will of God," 10 and hoped 
to be brought on his way thitherward by sym- 
pathizing brethren. 11 His journey, was indeed 



Gen. xxi, 5; Rom. iv, 20. s Luke xviii, 7. 

2 Cor. xii, 7, 8. 10 Rom. i, 10. n Rom. xv, 24. 



96 



Unanswered Prayers. 

prosperous beyond measure, though it was 
through years of imprisonment and the perils 
of shipwreck. 12 We pray for patience, and God 
answers us by taxing and developing the little 
patience we have. We pray for our children, 
and God shows us how we have sinned against 
them, both before and since they were born. 
Praying souls must look for answers to prayer 
in more ways than one, and should be trustful, 
though they can never know in this world just 
how literally or how fully many of their prayers 
are answered. 

II. But when is Prayer Really Unan- 
swered ? 

i. Prayer is unanswered when it is prompted 
by selfishness. When our askings are from a 
desire to secure that which will please and 
gratify ourselves, with little regard for the 
well-being of others, we can have little intelli- 
gent expectation that God will answer us. God 
is perfectly benevolent. He can look with no 
favor upon selfish praying. If we place our 
worldly prosperity, our personal happiness, in 
this world or the next, as the matter of su- 



12 Acts xxvii. 

7 97 



Half Century Messages. 

preme concern, while the well-being of others 
is held subordinate, we are out of harmony 
with God's nature and plans. We should not 
knowingly offer any petition to God which the 
Holy Spirit can not indorse. When that which 
is personal to us is first, and the good of others 
regarded as incidental, we are not "praying in 
the Holy Ghost." 13 When we pray from the 
suggestions of selfishness, we are asking God 
to act selfishly also. This He would do if He 
were to grant our requests. This he will not 
do, and so our selfish prayers are not answered. 
2. It is possible to pray for what we do not 
really desire. Those who thus ask will not re- 
ceive. When we pray that the will of God may 
be done, but refuse to accept His will as the law 
of our activity, we pray for what we, if we 
understand ourselves, do not desire. We prefer 
our wills to His. Do we pray for a forgiving 
spirit, but harbor ill-will towards those who 
have injured us? Then we do not desire to 
have our prayers answered. Do we pray that 
God will take away our pride of heart, while 
we cling to it and even nurse it? Do we ask 
that Christ may be with us, and yet part com- 



13 Jude vs. 20. 

9 8 



Unanswered Prayers. 

pany with Him by choosing associations which 
He can not approve? "All things whatsoever 
ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive 
them, and ye shall have them." 14 Who shall 
blame God for not giving in answer to prayer 
that which is not really desired? 

3. If we voluntarily consent to what we be- 
lieve to be sin, our prayers will be unavailing. 
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord 
will not hear me." 15 Practicing in our lives 
that which we doubt, if it be not sin, will ren- 
der our prayers insincere. Drifting with cus- 
tom at the expense of conscience; 16 gratifying 
appetites and tastes in things which our hearts 
condemn; 17 refusing to apply Christian prin- 
ciples to business, social, and political life; at- 
tempting to maintain a double life — secular 
with the world, and religious with the Church — 
these and such like inconsistencies will keep our 
prayers from the ear of God. 

4. When we ask God to do what He tells 
us to do, our prayers will be unanswered. It is 
of little use to pray for repentance when God 
tells us to repent. Men may find it more to 



u Mark xi, 24. 15 Psalms lxvi, 18. 16 Rom. xiv, 23. 

w 1 John iii, 20, 21. 

i.Dtr 99 



Haee Century Messages. 

their minds to ask that it be done for them, than 
to do it themselves, but God will not ; we may 
say He can not substitute His own acts for 
theirs. It is worse than useless to pray for 
physical health while we pay little or no atten- 
tion to the laws of health. Prayer can never 
be made a substitute for doing our duty. A 
wealthy man in a Chicago prayer-meeting once 
requested the good people to pray that the 
pressing wants of a poor family of his acquaint- 
ance might be supplied. Mr. Moody was pres- 
sent and responded : "If I were in your place, 
brother, I would not trouble the Lord with such 
a little thing as that; I would attend to that 
myself." Such praying is but a makeshift to 
excuse the neglect of Christian duty. God is 
too good and too self-consistent to answer such 
prayer. It is not enough to pray for the con- 
version of our neighbors ; God never made that 
the end of our responsibility for their salvation. 
Patient, loving, persistent effort in their behalf 
is the best part of such prayers. It will avail 
little to pray for sanctification unless we sanc- 
tify ourselves. Those who consistently pray 
to be cleansed from all sin, must not fail to 
"cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the 
ioo 



Unanswered Prayers. 

flesh and spirit/' 18 That prayer will be un- 
answered which asks that we may get into 
heaven at last, if we refuse to let heaven into 
our inner lives here. And just as futile will it 
be to pray for the destruction of the saloon 
power while we vote to legalize the institution 
itself. Right prayer must be joined to right 
living. 

5. When our faith is in prayer, rather than 
in the Hearer of prayer, we shall not be an- 
swered. There is a tendency to attribute to 
prayer a kind of magical power. Its frequency, 
its earnestness, its persistency is emphasized, 
not merely as indicating proper states of mind 
in those who pray, but as containing a kind of 
meritorious energy — a quality of irresistible- 
ness. "Prayer chains" are sometimes organ- 
ized, as though numbers and union would sway 
the Hand almighty. All this may be well 
meant, but there is a vein of superstition in it. 
It is not well to intimate that the effects of 
prayer are psychological merely. We should 
not give occasion for the thought that God is 
moved by numbers or by sympathetic appeals. 
God does not give so much blessing for so much 



18 2 Cor. vii, 1. 

IOI 



Hai^ Century Messages. 

praying. He gives all He wisely can. Prayer 
should be frequent, constant even, but this is 
not because the Lord regards our much speak- 
ing. Earnestness becomes those who hold audi- 
ence with the Most High, but this adds no merit 
or intercessory charm to prayer itself. So far 
as it indicates the intercession of the Spirit, 19 
it is a Divine response to the praying soul. 
Such prayer becomes the "energized and effect- 
ual prayer of the righteous man, that availeth 
much." 20 Prayer can never be more than ap- 
pointed means. It can not compel; it can not 
persuade ; it can only receive. 

6. // prayer is not offered in the name of 
Christ it will be unanswered. 21 In theory this 
is admitted by all praying people, but practically 
it may be easily overlooked. We plead our 
needs, our promises, our repentance, as giving 
us reason to expect that God will hear our 
prayer. It is well if we do not lean somewhat 
upon our own worth, as if God could hardly 
get along without us. We forget that Jesus 
Christ is the way to God. 22 He does not merely 
teach the way ; that might be said of Peter and 



19 Rom. viii, 26. 20 James v, 16. 21 John xiv, 13 ; xvi, 24. 

82 John xiv, 6. 

102 



Unanswered Prayers. 

Paul and of many other good men as well. But 
Christ is the way ; and this can be said of none 
but Him. We have no standing before God 
in ourselves. All grace, mercy, and peace from 
God the Father comes to us through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. 



103 



"And we are His witnesses of these things, and so 
is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them 
that obey Him." — Acts v, 32. 

"As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the 
Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for 
the work whereunto I have called them."— Acts xiii, 2. 

"The more full the gifts and divine breathings of 
the Spirit, the busier let us be — busier in the use of 
prayer, of sacraments, of the Bible, and of all those 
means through which the Spirit works." — Guthrie. 

"Our unconverted acquaintances are dearer to God 
than they can be to us, and He does not need or want to 
be entreated and persuaded by us to do what He can for 
them. He is all the time doing all He can to save them. 
What He wants is for us to help Him to persuade them 
to be reconciled to God; to unite our entreaties and 
warnings with His." — Anon. 



*°5 



IX. 



Christians must Work as thk Holy Spirit 
Works. 

"For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to 
us." — Acts xv, 28. 

One feature of this earliest Church history 
stands out very prominently — the Holy Spirit 
led and the disciples followed. They went 
where He directed. 1 They said what He said. 2 
When in council, whatever seemed good to the 
Holy Ghost, seemed good to them also. 3 Their 
message and method were the same as those of 
the Holy Spirit. They broke with tradition; 
they did new things; they uttered truth new 
and strange to their generation, because the 
Holy Spirit did the same. They worked as the 
Holy Spirit worked. Paul's audiences at 
Corinth came together to be amused. They 
cared little for what a speaker said if he only 



1 Acts xvi, 6. 2 Acts v, 32. 

IO7 



Half Century Messages. 

pleased them. They loved the oratorical and 
the dramatic, and they did not see in the apostle 
their ideal for a public speaker. Paul had a 
message from God to deliver, and it made him 
grandly in earnest. He could not stop to meet 
the tastes of the trivial; the Holy Ghost was 
preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified to 
the people, and he must do the same. 4 He knew 
philosophy, but he preached the sermons of the 
Holy Spirit. 5 

Theoretically all Christian people agree that 
the good which comes through human effort is 
the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit 
with and in the workers. Ministers are ready 
to admit that they are not sufficient of them- 
selves to think anything as of themselves, but 
that their sufficiency is of God. 6 We pray that 
our word may be in "demonstration of the 
Spirit and with power," 7 and it is easy to re- 
peat, "Without Me ye can do nothing." 8 But 
are we quite as certain that our ways of work- 
ing correspond with those of the Holy Spirit? 
Do we not sometimes attempt to lead and ask 
the Spirit to follow us ? In cases in which very 



4 1 Cor. ii, 2. & i Cor. ii, 4. 6 2 Cor. iii, 5. 

7 1 Cor. ii, 4. 8 John xv, 5. 

IO8 



Work as the; Holy Spirit Works 

meager results appear to follow well-meant 
efforts, may it not be that what has seemed 
good to us has not seemed good to the Holy 
Ghost? In seeking lower forms of good we 
study to know God's ways of working in order 
that we may conform to them. The farmer 
does not expect a harvest unless he puts his 
efforts in line with God's great laws. That 
physician who expects to effect cures while dis- 
regarding the Divine methods in physical law, 
must be either a simpleton or a quack. And in 
seeking the spiritual welfare of ourselves and 
others, is there less necessity of conforming to 
the Divine methods? 

i. The Holy Spirit works normally. He 
addresses the human soul in a normal manner. 
He uses the intellectual and moral faculties. 
He addresses the reason ; He presents consider- 
ations to the mind calculated to lead to right 
decisions. His work with human souls is per- 
suasive, and hence the apostle said of ministers, 
"We persuade men." 9 His work in the conver- 
sion of a soul is not a miracle in the popular 
sense ; it is a work in perfect harmony with the 
laws of mind. He is a Person, and speaks to 



9 2 Cor. v, ii. 

I09 



Hai<f Century Messages. 

men as persons. 

son" with his hearers. 10 

2. The Holy Spirit works through the 
truth. He is "the Spirit of truth." 11 He never 
misrepresents or deceives. He practices no 
artifices or concealments; He never exagger- 
ates. "The sword of the Spirit is the Word of 
God." 12 He works no schemes or tricks or 
shams. He works conviction through the truth. 
He illuminates the understanding enabling the 
mind to apprehend the truth. He withholds no 
truth necessary to the purposes of salvation, 
however unpalatable or self-condemning. Paul 
so conformed his ministry to the methods of the 
Holy Spirit that he could say of his work at 
Ephesus, "I kept back nothing that was profit- 
able unto you, but have showed you, and have 
taught you publicly, and from house to 
house." 13 

3. The Holy Spirit never appeals to selfish 
motives. He does not present salvation in 
Christ as a superior way of securing present 
happiness, nor as a scheme for getting to 
heaven. He promises no man ease or worldly 



10 Acts xvii, 2 ; xviii, 4. n John xvi, 13. 12 Eph. vi, 17. 

18 Acts xx, 20. 

IIO 



Work as ths Hoi,y Spirit Works 

advantage as the reward of piety. He seeks 
to break up the old self-seeking states of mind, 
and to bring the whole soul to accept its obli- 
gations to God and the world. He does not 
present the Church as a savior, nor Church 
membership as a certificate of transportation 
to a better world, but only as the best possible 
environment, and as furnishing the highest op- 
portunities for service to mankind. In har- 
mony with the teachings of Jesus, the Holy 
Spirit insists upon self-renunciation as a con- 
dition of discipleship. He teaches that to be- 
come Christians men must consent to live for 
that for which Christ lived, and be swayed by 
the motives which actuated Him. If we work 
as the Holy Spirit works, we must direct men 
to their duties rather than to their possible 
gains. 

4. The Holy Spirit convinces men of sin. 1 * 
Not so much of sins as of sin — sin as a volun- 
tary state of disobedience to God; a devotion 
to self-pleasing; a maintenance of self-will as 
against the will of God. He convinces men 
not only of the fact of sin, but of its unreason- 
ableness and wickedness. In His teaching, sin 

i*Johnxvi,8. 

Ill 



Half Century Messages. 

in its most heinous manifestation is the rejec- 
tion of Christ as offered in the Gospel. "Of 
sin, because they believe not on Me." 15 If we 
teach with Him, we shall maintain that sin is 
of a nature which no excuses can palliate, no 
temptations justify. We shall insist that, what- 
ever their environment, all men are responsible 
for their conduct up to the measure of their 
light. We shall suggest no time for repentance 
but the present, and no way of beginning Chris- 
tian life but in an unconditional surrender to 
Christ. We shall teach that, under Gospel in- 
vitations, the great sin of sins which compre- 
hends and indorses all others is the refusal to 
accept Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. And 
we shall insist that salvation through Christ 
is more than decency in outward behavior. It 
is in apprehending these self-convicting truths 
that men come to know their great need of 
Christ. Are we working with the Holy Spirit 
in His efforts to convince men of sin? 

5. The Holy Spirit reveals Christ. We 
should know nothing saving of Him if He did 
not. "He shall not speak of Himself. . . . 
He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of 

15 John xvi, 9 

113 



Work as the Holy Spirit Works. 

Mine, and shall show it unto you." 16 It is in 
the light that we see objects ; we do not see the 
light itself. It is in the light of the Holy Spirit 
that we see Christ and the way of salvation. 
If we work as the Holy Spirit works we shall 
do all we can to turn the attention of men to 
Christ, keeping ourselves as much as possible 
out of view. No spiritual good will come to 
others by seeing us, unless they see Christ in 
us. Caution is needed in the relation of our 
own religious experiences, lest we get ourselves 
in front and Christ in our shadows. Our out- 
ward fortunes and inward experiences may help 
others, provided they all point to Christ, and 
are related with becoming modesty and humil- 
ity. But when we make ourselves illustrations 
of saving grace, we walk on a narrow shelf. 
We may well pray for spiritual poise to enable 
us to go safely. If others catch a sight of Jesus 
therein, it is well; but if they think they see 
ourselves on exhibition, the effect counter- 
works the Holy Spirit. 

6. The Holy Spirit zvorks tenderly. He is 
never said to be angry. He can be grieved. 17 
His light in the soul can be quenched. 18 He 

16 John xvi, 13, 14. "Eph. iv, 30. 18 i Thess. v, 19. 

8 113 



Half Century Messages. 

can be resisted. 19 Nothing like coercion or vio- 
lence is ever attributed to Him in the Scrip- 
tures. He illuminates, He invites and entreats, 
He expostulates and warns. Threatening is 
His strange work. He yearns over lost men as 
Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He works with the 
tenderness with which a mother seeks a way- 
ward child. So must we work to save men if 
we are "workers together with God." 20 

7. The Holy Spirit works persistently. He 
does not work in fits and starts, nor does He 
confine Himself to special occasions. He is all 
the time at work. He does not abandon a sin- 
ner because he is hard and stubborn, but stays 
with him, and uses all opportunities to get 
nearer to him. If he ever abandons a soul, it 
is when his impenitence has become so con- 
firmed that all hope of persuading him to 
change is gone. He adapts His efforts to 
changing times and conditions. When repelled 
and defeated He renews His efforts, and is in- 
finitely patient towards those who are indiffer- 
ent to His admonitions. If we work with the 
Holy Ghost we shall labor with the individual, 
and we shall not give him up so long as God 

I'Acts vii, 51. 20 2 Cor. vi, 1. 

114 



Work as the: Hoi^y Spirit Works. 

works with him. We shall never say, "It will 
do no good to go after him." If the Holy 
Spirit goes after him, it is ours to follow. 
Wise workers will be constantly on the watch 
for cases with whom the Spirit is at work. The 
Sunday sermon should find them; the prayer- 
meeting should gather them ; the personal effort 
should hunt them out. They are in the shop 
and the store and the home, not less than in the 
Sunday-school and the special meeting. Are 
we praying that what seems good to us may 
seem good to the Holy Ghost also ? Or are we 
saying, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, 
and to us also ?" 



"5 



"And five of them were wise, and five were fool- 
ish."— Matt, xxv, 2. 

"We know that we have passed from death unto 
life." — i John iii, 14. 

"And you hath He quickened who were dead in 
trespasses and sins." — Eph. ii, 1. 

"And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but 
the goats on the left." — Matt, xxv, 33. 

"For ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye 
light in the Lord ; walk as children of light." — Eph. v, 8. 

"And these shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous into life eternal." — Matt, xxv, 46. 

"He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but 
He that believeth not is condemned already." — John 
iii, 18. 



117 



"The field is the world ; the good seed are the chil- 
dren of the kingdom; the tares are the children of the 
wicked one." — Matt, xiii, 38. 

"In this the children of God are manifested, and the 
children of the devil ; whosoever doeth not righteousness 
is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." — 
1 John iii, 10. 

"For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were 
free from righteousness ; but now being made free from 
sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit 
unto holiness and the end everlasting life." — Rom. vi, 
20, 22. 

"That at that time ye were without Christ, being 
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers 
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and 
without God in the world; but now in Christ Jesus, ye 
who sometime were far off are made nigh by the blood 
of Christ."— Eph. ii, 12, 13. 



Il8 



X. 



Some: Essential Differences between 
Saints and Sinners. 

"Then shall ye return and discern between the 
righteous and the wicked ; between him that serveth 
God, and him that serveth Him not." — Mai. iii, 18. 

That was a dark day in which Malachi 
was called to the prophetic office. The priest- 
hood was unspiritual and mercenary. 1 The 
Church followed its leaders into worldly life, 
and religion had become largely an empty 
form. 2 Social vices went unrebuked, and 
family life was cursed by divorce and adultery. 3 
Political life had become corrupt ; wicked men 
were in power, and the poor were oppressed. 4 

As a result, a spirit of unbelief prevailed. 
Men said that the proud were happy, and that 
it was a vain thing to serve God. 5 They did 
not believe that prayer did any good, and 
thought the wicked were getting on as well as 



»Mal. i, 6, io. *Ibid. ii, 13. * Ibid. 14-16. * Ibid, iii, 15. 

$Ibid. 14. 

119 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

others. 6 They could see no difference between 
the righteous and the wicked ; they all behaved 
much alike, and God seemed to treat them all 
in the same way. 

Against this general skepticism the prophet 
lifted his voice. "You say," he says, "that there 
is no difference between the righteous and the 
wicked? You will change your mind on that 
question. God has a faithful few whom He 
prizes as His jewels, and when days of judg- 
ment come they will be spared as a man spares 
his own son. You will then see for yourselves 
that there is a great difference between him 
that serveth God and him that serveth Him 
not." 7 

The spirit which discerns no difference be- 
tween God's people and those who are not, is 
not exclusively Jewish, nor was it confined to 
the time of Malachi. There are still those who 
claim that all differences in moral character 
are a sliding scale in which there is no zero 
point, and in which Christian experience is no 
determining factor. This perverted view re- 
sults in part from the fact that many who claim 
to be Christians give sad occasion, by their 

6 Mai. ii, 17. 1 1bid, iii, 18. 

I20 



Differences between Saints and Sinners. 

worldly spirit and life, for the inference that 
the difference between them and the world is 
chiefly one of profession. It is the result also 
of that tendency in men to deny that others are 
better than themselves. Admitting that there 
are those who possess a purer spirit and live a 
holier life than themselves, the conviction is 
forced upon them that they are wrong — un- 
faithful and unsaved. Men are unwilling to be 
thus convinced of sin. Even Satan resented the 
insinuation that he was not as good as Job. He 
charged that the difference between himself and 
the patriarch was due to the better treatment 
of the latter on the part of God. Job had been 
God's favorite, while he had been a cast-off. 8 
The question was one of difference in environ- 
ment. The devil still repeats the lie. The no- 
tion that there is no material difference be- 
tween Christians and those who are not Chris- 
tians is sometimes encouraged in religious cir- 
cles. When things unessential in Christian 
character are emphasized as the very creden- 
tials of genuine piety, and when that which is 
most important receives but little attention, the 
conclusion is easily reached that the difference 

8 Job i, ii. 

121 



Hai^ Century Messages. 

between the two classes is a superficial one. 
We have need at this point to discriminate with 
wisdom and faithfulness. To mistake here 
may lead some to think themselves Christians 
when they are not, and others to despair who 
should be taught to trust. 

That there are radical differences between 
those who are Christians and all who are not 
Christians, is a fact assumed throughout the 
whole Bible, and in the New Testament espe- 
cially it is dwelt upon in detail. Not only are 
differences affirmed, but such differences as 
amount to contrasts. The terms by which these 
two classes are characterized are as a rule 
antithetical. Light and darkness, living and 
dead, freedom and slavery, citizens and aliens ; 
these and such like terms are used to indicate 
the fundamental unlikeness of saints and sin- 
ners. It is significant also that, from the New 
Testament point of view, there are but just 
these two classes. Men are either in the world 
or in Christ; condemned or forgiven. The 
Bible does not claim that these differences, in 
all their extent and meaning, are open to the 
gaze of the world; but it does maintain that 
they really exist. 

122 



Differences between Saints and Sinners. 

I. In what, then, consist the Essential 
Differences between Saints and Sin- 
ners? 

i. Not in anything which both classes may 
possess in common. Whatever may be their 
differences, it is plain that they can not be dif- 
ferentiated by what belongs to both. These dif- 
ferences must include that which a Christian 
is and must be in order to be a Christian, and 
they must include that which can not be af- 
firmed of those who are not Christians. That 
which both have or can have in common is not 
their essential difference. 

2. The difference can not consist in any- 
thing which is constitutional. Natural traits, 
gifts, and endowments, whatever they may be, 
do not determine Christian character. Nothing 
which is inherited from ancestors can make one 
a saint or a sinner. The right use of natural 
abilities, and the government of inherited dis- 
positions, come into the question of Christian 
life, but their existence can not constitute moral 
differences. Varieties in constitutional traits 
are exhibited by both good men and bad men. 
Peter was hasty ; Thomas was slow. John was 

123 



Half Century Messages. 

a philosopher; Matthew was a man of affairs. 
No two men were less alike than Luther and 
Melanchthon, though it is beyond human dis- 
cernment to determine which was the greater 
saint. Some good men, some bad men are im- 
pulsive and sympathetic in the presence of suf- 
fering; others are coldly practical. Some 
wicked men despise what is little and mean, 
but enjoy much that is sinful, provided it is 
shrewdly performed. Fathers and mothers, 
good and bad, love their children, and so do 
the brutes. Semblances of virtue may thus 
exist in what is purely constitutional, and which 
possess no moral character. They do not in 
any way distinguish a saint from a sinner. 

3. The difference is not wholly or exactly 
in outward life. A general correspondence of 
life to character may be safely affirmed. There 
are virtues which seldom or never appear in 
other than Christian lives, and there are vices 
which we know men can not practice and at the 
same time be Christians. But correctness of 
outward life may to a great extent be imitated 
by those who are not Christians. The influence 
of home training and of the school ; the force of 
law and custom and general sentiment; the 

124 



Differences between Saints and Sinners. 

presence of a moral atmosphere, created by 
Christianity itself, — all have the effect to hold 
many men to right lines of conduct. Men may 
avoid indulgences from the knowledge of the 
ruin which they work to body and mind. They 
may care too much for their names to throw 
them away upon appetite. Financial consider- 
ations may demand a course which shall secure 
to them the respect of the community. Some 
forms of sin exclude others ; a miser can not be 
a drunkard or a gambler, and it is possible for 
men to bridle themselves in some directions 
that they may run without restraint in others. 
On the other hand, great inconsistencies appear 
in the lives of good men. They have been 
wrongly taught, or perhaps taught not at all. 
Their old ways of thinking and living are not 
broken up in a day. It is only in piecemeal, 
and in process of time, that their whole lives 
are brought to the test of their religious vows. 
Just how to order one's life so as best to honor 
God and serve human well-being is, to every 
serious man, a lifelong study. Good men grow 
more and more consistent as their light in- 
creases, and yet their external life may never 
fully express their spiritual state. To find the 

«5 



Half Century Messages. 

difference between saints and sinners, we must 
go beyond what they do, to why they do as 
they do. 

4. Nor is the essential difference between 
saints and sinners one of intellectual belief. 
Good men may be in error, and bad men may 
accept a good creed. Without doubt right 
moral states are favorable to the apprehension 
and acceptance of religious truth, and it is 
equally true that wrong moral states are in the 
way of a proper appreciation of spiritual real- 
ities. A Christian has no possible interest 
against the truth, and in the degree in which he 
is spiritually minded he is helped to discern it. 
But he is not infallible, and may fall into error. 
On the other hand, men are inclined to disbe- 
lieve that which they do not desire to have true. 
Religious truth rebukes sinful men; it charges 
them with violated obligations, and judgment 
is easily biased when self-defense becomes nec- 
essary. But in any case, it is not doctrines ; it 
is not theories which render one class Chris- 
tian and the other unchristian. Good men 
may go astray in belief and yet be right in 
heart, and bad men may "hold down the truth 



126 



Differences between Saints and Sinners. 

in unrighteousness." 9 Both good men and bad 
approve honesty, truthfulness, and justice; both 
condemn ingratitude, treachery, and oppres- 
sion. All men, whatever their character, are 
compelled by the laws of their mental consti- 
tution to do intellectual homage to self-sacri- 
ficing goodness. 

5. Many forms of religious feelings are 
common to both the righteous and the wicked. 
Under conditions which move the sensibility, 
many who remain unconverted feel badly in 
view of their sin ; they dread its consequences ; 
they desire a better state, and as they conceive 
of heaven, they desire to go there. They are 
often glad to see others starting in religious life, 
and wish that they themselves were Christians. 
So Christians feel sorrow for sin; they desire 
to be better; they desire to go to heaven, and 
they rejoice when others begin the new life. 
We do not say that these emotional experiences 
have always the same causes, or that they mean 
the same in both classes; we only insist that 
any experience which goes no further than the 
realm of desire can not, with any degree of cer- 
tainty, distinguish Christians from all others. 



9R.om. i, 18. 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

Passive states are brought into existence under 
fixed conditions, and to a greater or less degree 
under the same conditions with all classes of 
people. They do not therefore identify Chris- 
tian character. 

6. Christians differ from all others in their 
aim and end of life. The Christian lives for 
that for which Christ lives — to reveal God and 
thus promote the highest good of man. He 
chooses what he understands God to choose, 
and whatever the form of his activity, his ulti- 
mate purpose centers in the will of God. He 
seeks to bring about in the world that which 
Christ seeks to accomplish. It hardly need be 
said that none but Christians live in this volun- 
tary choice of the right end of life. To make 
this choice is, on the human side, to become a 
Christian. In all forms of sinful life the ulti- 
mate aim falls to the plane of self-gratifica- 
tion — self-pleasing — self-interest. The inner 
life is dominated by the principle of self-regard. 
Here is a radical difference. The one can never 
be shaded into the other. It is not a difference 
of view, or of feeling, or of degree ; it is a fun- 
damental difference between him that serveth 
God and him that serveth Him not. 
128 



Differences between Saints and Sinners. 

7. Christians have peace with God. 10 This 
does not mean merely that they have a feeling 
of peace in their minds. It means more than 
that they have a blissful persuasion that God, 
through grace in Christ, treats them as right- 
eous. It means that they have actually come 
into harmony with God. They choose the same 
end which He chooses, and in their measure 
seek to accomplish it by the same means. The 
ungodly are not so. 11 While their aims are the 
opposite of the aims of God they can not have 
peace with Him. Every feeling of peace which 
they have is world-begotten and delusive. 
Here, then, is a fact which is true of Christians, 
but which is not and can not be true of those 
who are in impenitence. 

8. Oneness and separateness distinguish the 
relations of the two classes to God. The Chris- 
tian has no interest separate from Christ's in- 
terests. By cheerful surrender and devotion he 
has accepted the fact that he belongs to Christ. 
His family, his farm, his trade, his profession, 
his all, he recognizes as made over to Christ. 
With the natural man, his home, his property, 
and his business are his own. He manages 



10 Rom. v, 1, » Psa. i, 4. 

9 129 



Half Century Messages. 

them for himself. The profits are his to use 
as he pleases. What he contributes to any in- 
terest of Christ's kingdom is a charity which he 
might have withheld without taint of neglect. 
He recognizes no vital connection between 
God's business and his. Here are differences 
of life which can never harmonize or coexist in 
the same person. 

9. With the Christian the will of God is 
■final authority in all matters. He needs no 
other reason for doing or not doing than that 
the contemplated action is pleasing or displeas- 
ing to God. The question with him is not, 
what will be most easy or agreeable to himself ; 
not what will bring him the greatest returns in 
money or favor ; not what others do or will do ; 
the one question with him is : "What is the will 
of God? Will this course promote the end 
which Christ is seeking to accomplish ?" Those 
who are not Christians sometimes do religious 
things, but they must generally be stimulated 
to action by some appeal to self-interest. The 
idea of duty is not enough to lead them. When 
unsaved men come into Churches, they must 
be coaxed along by motives that address their 
self-centered states of mind. They are sensitive 
130 



Differences between Saints and Sinners. 

to neglect ; they shun burden-bearing ; they piat 
out the duties which they propose to perform, 
though the will of God is equally related to 
them all. These facts concerning these classes 
indicate a radical difference — a difference at the 
very seat of life. 

10. The Christian is "in Christ." More 
than thirty times in one form or another, this 
statement appears in the New Testament. It 
is used to signify what we generally mean by 
conversion or regeneration. 12 It means that 
Christian believers have entered into the will 
of God as their law ; they have accepted Christ 
as King and Savior; they pray in His name; 
they trust alone in His atoning work ; they over- 
come in His strength ; they live in His life. 

Strikingly in contrast with all this is the 
state of the unregenerate man. He is "without 
Christ." 13 He is in himself. He trusts that 
he is about as good as most people, and better 
than many; he is "doing about as well as he 
can;" he thinks that he deserves fairly well at 
the hands of his Maker ; he lives unto himself 
and in himself. The saint is in Christ; the 



12 Rom. viii, i ; xvi, 7 ; 2 Cor. vii, 17. 13 ^ph. ii, 12. 



Half Century Messages. 

sinner is out of Christ. Can a more radical dif- 
ference exist in human characters ? 

ii. The saint and the sinner are both re- 
ligious. The religion of the one is experience 
and life ; that of the other, the doing of relig- 
ious things. The sin of the one is on Christ; 
that of the other on himself. The one over- 
comes temptation, for he trusts in Christ; the 
other is overcome by it, for he trusts in him- 
self. The one is led by love ; the other driven 
by fear. The one would live unto God were 
there no hereafter ; the other would be glad of 
some other way in which he might get to 
heaven. One is a child; the other a slave. 
And at last, one is on the right hand ; the other 
on the left. 14 



14 Matt. xxv, 46. 



132 



"Self-denial is self-love living for the future." — Neal 
Dow. 

"His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which 
shall lie down with him in the dust." — Job xx, II. 

A young man in a State's prison was asked by the 
chaplain as to the causes which led him to his crime 
and punishment, to which the convict replied : "Three 
things ; First, I was allowed plenty of money ; second, 
I had nothing to do ; third, I always had my own way." — 
Rev. B. I. Ives. 

"No man can be trusted as a public officer who is 
dishonest or untrue in private life. Integrity is not a 
virtue to be put on and off like a coat at the convenience 
of the wearer. A good man will advocate what he 
thinks is right, in public or private affairs, whether it 
concerns his party or his purse." — Morals and Manners, 
p. 153. 



133 



"I have sometimes wished that I might see an angel, 
and become acquainted with that order of beings, but 
in recent years I have more desired to see something 
higher — I have wanted to see a man. In my misguided 
thought I have sometimes wished that I myself were an 
angel, but I have long ago dismissed that aspiration; I 
want simply to be a man" — Rev. B. F. Tefft. 

"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard 
than anybody else expects of you. Demand more of 
yourself than anybody expects of you. Keep your own 
standard high. Never excuse yourself to yourself, but 
be lenient to others. . . . The art of making one's 
fortune is not to spend. In this country any intelligent, 
industrious young man may obtain a competency if he 
will stop all leaks, and is not in a hurry. Do not make 
haste; be patient. . . . Do not despise your father's 
and mother's God. You will need all your nerve to 
keep your heart before God. Do not despise small 
churches and humble ministers." — Letter of Henry Ward 
Beecher. 



134 



XL 

Some Mistakes of Young Men. 

"And he had a son whose name was Saul, a choice 
young man, and a goodly : and there was not among the 
children of Israel a goodlier person than he." — i Sam. 
ix, 2. 

A favored son. Born into a good family ; 
he possessed a fine personal presence and su- 
perior abilities. He was raised to a high po- 
sition without his seeking; he had a great op- 
portunity, but he proved a great failure. He 
was rash; he could never wait. We have no 
knowledge that he ever prayed; he was relig- 
ious, but not obedient to God ; his abilities and 
his opportunities perished together. He made 
mistakes which could not be remedied. 

There are young men now who are well 
born — born to rare privileges and large oppor- 
tunities — who fail. They fail to reach their 
best possibilities ; they fail to meet the expecta- 
tions of their friends ; they fail to achieve the 

135 



Haee Century Messages. 

character which they should possess ; they fail 
to exert the influence upon others which they 
might ; some of them miserably fail. They, too, 
make mistakes which lead to their Gilboa. 

i. It is a mistake in young men to regard 
their youth as of less importance than their 
later years. There are many probations in hu- 
man life; the greatest of these, however, is 
youth. Under normal conditions our manner 
of life in youth proximately determines the 
number of our years which follow. It decides 
whether we may expect substantial health to 
advanced years, or the sufferings of the invalid 
with life both enfeebled and cut short. It is in 
young manhood that the reputation is gained 
for honesty, truthfulness, and trustworthiness, 
which constitute the wealth of later years, or 
the name of being deceitful and unreliable, 
which is the poverty and disgrace of old age. 
Habits formed in early life are the most in- 
veterate, and least likely to be abandoned in 
subsequent years. If there is value to life at 
all, supreme importance attaches itself to its 
earlier years. 

2. It is a sad mistake for young men to 
think they have no need of counsel from those 
136 



Some; Mistakes of Young Msn. 

older and more experienced than themselves. 
In that period in which imagination is vivid, 
when passion is vehement, and habits of reflec- 
tion are not strongly developed, it is easy for 
young men to rush into independence, to be- 
come impatient of restraint and to think them- 
selves safe in their own keeping. Advice which 
is opposed to their ideas and inclinations is 
undervalued and often disregarded. They are 
sure that their way is the road to happiness. 
They do not appreciate the fact that those who 
have been over the same ground are better 
judges of its dangers than they. Time dispels 
their illusion, and either corrects their mistake 
or witnesses their ruin. It was the young man 
who thought himself wiser than his teachers; 
who, when his name and health were gone, and 
his bones were rotten with the sins of his youth, 
sent up a cry which might have rent the 
heavens : "How have I hated instruction, and 
my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed 
the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear 
to them that instructed me." 1 

3. Young men make a mistake when they 
indulge the habit of wasting. The waste habit 

1 Prov. v, 12, 13. 

137 



Half Century Messages. 

is easily contracted, but is never abandoned 
without difficulty. The habit has many forms ; 
but when allowed in any one direction, it 
strongly inclines to indulgence in others. The 
waste of money, however small the sums, is a 
mistake ; it is wrong. For a young man present 
waste generally means future want. Money 
wasted is money wanted somewhere, and no 
man has any right to spend it for that which 
does no good to himself or others. It is God's 
money, and should be used according to the 
will of the owner. Waste of time is a greater 
loss than that of money. Idleness is the bane 
of prosperity, temporal and spiritual. Hard 
work should be accepted as the merciful ar- 
rangement for us all. It is treason against our- 
selves and against society to attempt to escape 
it. To be trivially employed; to stand still, 
waiting for higher wages, or for something to 
turn up, is foolish and wicked waste. Socrates 
called every man idle who could be doing some- 
thing better than he is doing. Mental idleness 
is, if possible, a worse form of waste than phys- 
ical idleness. It is degrading to both body and 
mind. It is the opinion of some careful ob- 
servers that the vice of licentiousness is emi- 

138 



Some Mistakes of Young Men. 

nently the sin of mental indolence. Young men 
who never study, who read nothing which costs 
them intellectual effort, who keep nothing on 
hand to think about, will have little grip on any- 
thing. Mental muscle grows by vigorous exer- 
cise. 

4. Chronic hurry is a common mistake zvith 
young men. Their pulse is fiery, and they live 
in a. fever. They eat in a hurry, work in a 
hurry, and conduct their sport in a hurry. As 
a result they digest poorly, seldom enjoy the 
things of every-day life, and never do their best 
at anything. In a hurry to get into business 
for themselves, they cut short their education ; 
they can not take the time to go through col- 
lege. They are in such haste to make money 
that they sacrifice their best opportunities of 
securing it, and lose what is worth more than 
money. They study in a hurry, and hence les- 
sons superficially digested, still less assimilated, 
and least of all permanently retained. They 
marry in a hurry, and thus tempt some young 
women to act with equal haste, and deprive 
them for a lifetime of the well-rounded man- 
hood which, in husbands, they need and perhaps 
deserve. The young man who hurriedly grasps 

139 



Half Century Messages. 

at a present advantage or enjoyment, while 
sacrificing a more distant but less transient 
good, will never reach his best possibilities. He 
will die of hurry. 

5. A mistake which has often proved fatal 
to young men consists in pampering physical 
appetite. Appetite is blind ; it solicits, but never 
discriminates. Its movement is the same 
whether towards the innocent or the forbidden. 
We have an animal nature joined with a spir- 
itual ; rather, we are spiritual beings for a time 
connected with a brute nature. If the animal 
dominates the spiritual, degradation and ruin 
result. We were never made to be governed 
by appetite; that belongs to the brute. Here 
is a battle-ground for all men, but especially 
for those who are at that period in life in which 
appetite is sensitive to temptation, and in which 
the dangers of indulgence are not understood. 
Because of the deceitful pleasure connected 
with the use of alcolohic drinks and narcotics, 
their harmlessness is assumed. The lurking 
slavery which results is concealed. To be 
bound down by any form of bodily appetite is 
a degradation, against which young manhood 
should fight as for its honor and its life. Beer, 
140. 



Some: Mistakes of Young Men. 

wine, tobacco, and the whole brood of short- 
cuts to deceitful pleasure should be cast out as 
abominations, to be forever forsaken. The 
young man can not put off this struggle till he 
is older; the war is already upon him. To be 
a man, full and free, is a work so great that the 
whole life is needed for its accomplishment. 
"Flee also youthful lusts, but follow righteous- 
ness, faith, peace with them that call on the 
Lord out of a pure heart." 2 

6. It is a mistake in any young man if he 
pretends to be what he is not. The pretense is 
not honest, and it will be soon taken to be a 
false label placed upon inferior goods. If it 
taxes his nerve at the first, he must have the 
courage to be himself. He should speak with 
his own voice, and speak what he thinks. No 
man should be able to coax or bribe him into 
dishonesty concerning himself. He is weak the 
moment he ceases to be real. He is a fallen 
young man whenever he begins to adopt a life 
which he feels constrained to keep a secret 
from his friends. A double-lived man is a 
hypocrite, and the judgment-day is sure to over- 
take him before he dies. He will be strong if 
he is sincere. If he wavers and changes his 

8 2 Tim. ii, 22, I A I 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

course in different ways to avoid criticism, he 
will only increase his embarrassment. "To flee 
from the dog increases his bark." 

7. Young men make great mistakes in the 
choice of their associates. They make equally 
great ones by failing to make any choice, and 
instead taking the first who offer themselves. 
Those who are most forward in offering com- 
panionship are not unfrequently the least desir- 
able. A young man can not afford to keep him- 
self to a low plane of association, just because 
he can thus be at the head. He must keep a 
sharp lookout for his own improvement. His 
most intimate companions should, if possible, 
be those whom he is compelled to look upon as 
his superiors. He needs them for the sake of 
the influence upon his own character. It is 
next to impossible to resist the miasmatic influ- 
ences which exist in social life. He needs them 
for. the sake of the estimate which others will 
place upon him because of his associates. He 
does not need the companionship of young men 
who spend a great deal of money. He is in no 
need of those who speak falsely, profanely, or 
vulgarly, nor of those whose manners and 
habits are such that he would not invite them 
142 



Some: Mistakes of Young Men. 

to the society of his mother and sisters. He 
must not be the companion of those who drink 
or gamble, and he should shun, as he would a 
viper, the young man who is unclean in his lips 
or his life. He should keep the company of 
those who are brave enough to tell him his 
faults and warn him of his dangers. He should 
be as careful to avoid bad and unprofitable com- 
pany in the books he reads, as in the men whom 
he meets. He should not judge of the quality 
in either case by the amusement which it offers ; 
as well judge of the "worth of medicine by 
its taste." 

8. Young men make all mistakes in one 
when they venture into life without reference 
to God and religion. To affect independence 
of the claims of God is as foolish as it is sinful. 
To treat the plans of God concerning us with 
indifference is the climax of recklessness. The 
young man who can waive away religion and 
the Bible and the Church with an air of self- 
sufficiency, predicts for himself the fortunes of 
a prodigal. He will meet temptations for which 
his strength will prove weakness. He will walk 
among pitfalls to escape which he will need 
the helping hands of Christians, and, above all, 

143 



Hale Century Messages. 

a personal acquaintance with Jesus Christ. His 
boasts of sufficient strength to take care of him- 
self reveal his greater danger. 

The fatal mistake of the son of Kish was 
his having so little to do with God. He took 
counsel of his own heart; he thought he could 
better the plans of God in his own interest. As 
a result, that choice and goodly young man, the 
pride of his tribe and the hope of his country, 
ended his career in a chapter which wrung from 
his soul the despairing cry, "I am sore dis- 
tressed, and God is departed from me, and an- 
swereth me no more, neither by prophets nor 
by dreams/' 3 And it is still more sad to see 
young men now cast away the restraints of 
religion, and fail in the onsets of the world, 
the flesh and the devil. Then comes the 
closing chapter, — lives choked with the in- 
destructible memories of lost opportunities 
and sinful deeds; hearts aching with secrets 
which must be kept from nearest friends; 
possibilities once near, now gone past and 
out of sight, and a vain cry to Heaven for 
help in carrying out selfish plans, in forming 
which God had never been consulted. 



3 1 Sam. xxviii, 15. 

144 



"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever 
ye do, do all to the glory of God." — i Cor. x, 31. 

"What is there to appal us, however deep and set- 
tled our habits of sin, if Christ has provided the means, 
and has undertaken to accomplish our full redemption 
from all iniquity?" — Asa Mahan. 

"Is it possible to aim at doing our whole duty, while 
having no expectation that we are going to do it ? And 
can we pray acceptably for grace to obey God in all 
things, and yet expect that we are not going to do it?" 

"A man who has been redeemed by the blood of the 
Son of God should be pure. He who is an heir of life 
should be holy. He who is attended by celestial beings, 
and who is soon — he knows not how soon — to be trans- 
lated to heaven, should be holy." — Albert Barnes. 

"Men will contend long for their natural rights. 
This is the spring of much of the heroism which illu- 
mines the pages of history. Could we impress the whole 
Christian Church with the assurance that in the name of 
Jesus they have each an individual right to the undivided 
Comforter and Sanctifier, the Church would be suddenly 
transformed from a hospital to a band of conquering 
heroes." — Mile-Stone Papers. 



10 



145 



XII. 

Can We be Saved from Committing Sin? 

"Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save 
His people from their sins." — Matt, i, 21. 

i. Can we be saved from committing sin? 
If we were to determine this question by the 
more common degree of expectation manifested 
by Christian people, we should be compelled to 
answer it in the negative. Very many at least 
appear to have no more idea of being saved 
from sinning than of being translated. This 
may be the result in part of erroneous notions 
concerning the nature of sin, and in part the 
effect of the teaching which they have received. 
But the question is not whether all God's chil- 
dren are in fact saved from the commission of 
sin, but is it their privilege in Christ Jesus thus 
to be saved? 

2. Nor is the question to be settled by ref- 
erence to the human will. Whatever may be 

147 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

the philosophical possibilities of human free- 
dom, it remains practically certain that no man 
ever did, or ever will, overcome his tendencies 
and temptations to sin by mere force of will. 
It is not a question of the strength of one man, 
or of the weakness of another, nor of the in- 
abilities of us all. The Bible never grounds 
our hope of salvation in our own strength. No 
power of will can assure us of salvation; no 
weakness of will can render our salvation im- 
possible. 

3. Again, the question is not whether re- 
generation and sanctifieation may be so per- 
fectly accomplished in us at any given time, that 
thereafter we are kept from committing sin by 
virtue of these divinely wrought states. Re- 
generation signifies the beginning of spiritual 
life; sanctifieation the progressive and com- 
pleted dominance of that life. For the continu- 
ance of regeneration or sanctifieation, the same 
is required which was demanded for its begin- 
ning. A regenerated soul is begotten of the 
Holy Spirit, and he continues regenerated by 
a continuous Divine begetting. Sanctifieation 
is net so much a work aj a working. It is a 
constant doing of the Holy Spirit. The state 
148 



Can Ws b£ Savsd £rom Committing Sin? 

keeps no one from sinning. The state is noth- 
ing apart from the continuous presence of the 
Spirit. The "cleansing from all unrighteous- 
ness" 1 is not a work of the Divine Spirit which 
He performs and then stops; if He stops His 
work the cleansing stops. Regeneration and 
sanctification exist no longer than the Holy 
Spirit continues to regenerate and sanctify. 

Many Christian people appear to look at 
this subject much as Deists view the act of cre- 
ation. The Deist maintains that God created 
the world, and that He put into it certain laws 
and forces by virtue of which it has run on of 
itself ever since. Christian Theists contend that 
God was no more in the world the day of its 
creation than He has been every moment since. 
Matter, and law, and force, are nothing apart 
from His constant working. Had He been less 
in creation since, than at the first, there would 
be no creation now. 

So it would seem, not a few good people 
conceive of regeneration and sanctification after 
a Deistic idea. They think of them as works 
which the Holy Spirit performs, and then 
ceases to work in that specific way, having no 

1 1 John i, 9. 

149 



Half Century Messages. 

more to do in that particular line. As the re- 
sult of these new endowments, believers go on 
in regeneration and sanctification by virtue of 
the work which the Holy Spirit has done. A 
better view is that regeneration and sanctifica- 
tion go on just as the Holy Spirit goes on re- 
generating and sanctifying. The states in 
themselves are nothing apart from Him. Re- 
generation as a state is the continued regener- 
ating work of the Spirit, and a state of sancti- 
fication is the Holy Spirit continually sanctify- 
ing the believer. The error here is not merely 
philosophical; it is intensely practical. The 
wrong concept sets good men and women at 
work seeking a work — a state, instead of a 
Divine Person. As a result, struggle after 
struggle follows in efforts to hold on to a work 
done, instead of accepting the Eternal Doer. 
4. And the question is not whether Chris- 
tians can be saved from making mistakes. 
They do make mistakes, and will continue to 
make them to the end of their lives. They are 
liable to mis judgments concerning men, and 
books, and Christian doctrine. They may be 
in error in reference to the meaning of Bible 
passages, and even in the interpretation of re- 

150 



Can We) b£ Saved from Committing Sin? 

ligious experiences. Whatever may be possible 
with God in the case, we have no assurance 
that, in this life, we shall be saved from misap- 
prehensions and misconstructions of various 
kinds. And as we act and speak according to 
our judgments, we shall act and speak differ- 
ently. While we may all become subjectively 
right, we shall all be more or less objectively 
wrong to life's end. 

$.The question is not whether Christians 
can ever reach a state in which it would be im- 
possible for them to sin. This was not the state 
of Adam in Paradise, nor that of the angels 
in heaven. It would not be a Christian state; 
it could not be a moral condition. The power 
to be holy and the power to sin are mutually 
inclusive. They are the same power exercised 
in opposite directions. With the possibility of 
sinning taken away from man, the possibility 
of becoming holy would also be destroyed, and 
moral character would to him be impossible. 
Fletcher says : "God's goodness consists in the 
perfect rectitude of His eternal will, and not in 
a want of power to do an act of injustice. And 
the devil's wickedness consists in the complete 
perverseness of his obstinate w'U, and not in a 

J 5i 



Half Century Messages. 

complete want of power to do what is right." 2 
Man will forever be free, and forever respon- 
sible for his moral attitudes. 

6. The question then is simply this; are the 
provisions of the Gospel such that those who 
embrace them may reasonably expect to be kept 
from committing sin? Have Christian believ- 
ers good grounds for the faith that, through 
Jesus the Savior, they may reach a state of con- 
tinued obedience to God? May they realize a 
life in which their wills steadily and uniformly 
harmonize with the will of God? Can Chris- 
tians be permanently saved from known trans- 
gressions of the Divine law ? 

7. The answer to this question must come 
from the Word of God, and so clearly is the 
case there stated, that it seems surprising that 
a doubt has ever been raised concerning it 
The notion that Christians must inevitably sin 
all their lives would appear to be an instance 
in which the provisions of the Gospel have been 
brought down in order to apologize for exist- 
ing conditions among professed believers. 
When the Lord's Christ is presented in the New 
Testament as the Savior, it is as the Savior 



2 Fletcher's Works, II, pp. 197, 19I 
152 



Can Ws b£ Savsd from Committing Sin? 

from sin ; not from some sin ; not from the sin 
of some; not from sin some of the time, but 
from sin. So far as the ability of Jesus to save 
from sin is concerned, no limitations or excep- 
tions are expressed. The salvation of the Gos- 
pel is everywhere salvation from sin without 
qualification. On what authority are these Di- 
vine provisions restricted ? 

8. The salvation offered in the Gospel is 
offered to men in this life. The selfishness of 
men has created a popular notion that salvation 
refers to future blessedness. To be saved, we 
have thought, means to escape hell and get to 
heaven. This is not the Gospel message. The 
salvation of the Gospel is here on earth. Jesus 
came to earth ; Calvary and the cross were here ; 
and all the wealth of eternal love is poured out 
upon the race in its world life. The Gospel 
is not like certain acts of Legislatures, to take 
effect after a specified time; it is in full force 
and effect now. It means this moment all it 
can ever mean. Salvation has only an indirect 
relation to another world. There is no hell 
possible for any soul who is united to Jesus 
Christ, and there is no heaven in the universe 
to him who rejects the only Savior. If salva- 

J 53 



Half Century Messages. 

tion is in this world, it is salvation from sin- 
ning; its purpose is to bring the righteousness 
of God into the souls and lives of men. 

9. Life without committing sin is fore- 
shadowed in the very nature of repentance. 
We start into the Christian life by purposely 
turning from all known sin, and giving our- 
selves in willing obedience to God. If we pur- 
posed the abandonment of some forms of sin 
only, and if we intended but a partial obedience, 
our repentance would be "the sorrow of the 
world that worketh death." 3 We could never 
think of entering into covenant with God while 
any known sin was unrenounced, or any point 
of self-will not surrendered. But are we re- 
quired to purpose that which we can never hope 
to realize? And if this be required of us, will 
its realization be necessarily withholden from 
us ? If we ask the Heavenly Father for bread, 
will He give us a stone ? 4 

10. On no other subject are the promises of 
the New Testament more numerous or more 
specific. They assure us that sin shall not have 
dominion over one who accepts Christ ; 5 we are 
exhorted to reckon ourselves dead unto sin, but 

3 2 Cor. vii, 10. 4 1,uke xi, 9-13. 5 Rom. vi, 14. 

154 



Can Ws b£ Sav^d From Committing Sin? 

alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord ; 6 
we are told that what the law could not do, 
God, sending His Son, can do; 7 that there is 
no condemnation to them who are in Christ 
Jesus ; 8 that God will establish us and keep us 
from evil; 9 that our great High Priest is able 
to save to the uttermost all who come to God 
by Him. 10 Can these promises mean less than 
that Jesus the Savior offers to save His people 
from committing sin ? And yet the New Testa- 
ment abounds in promises, assurances, exhor- 
tations, and prayers which contain the same 
practical meaning. 

REMARKS. 

i. This subject appeals to Christians as a 
question of privilege. It is their calling of God 
in Christ Jesus. It is the "glorious gospel of 
Christ/' 11 

2. Is not the absence of expectation on the 
part of professed Christians, that they can and 
shall reach a state of abiding obedience to God, 
a manifestation of unbelief? Does it not dis- 
honor, and in a measure reject Christ? And 
does it not lead persons to regard sin as a mat- 

6 Rom. vi, ii. 1 Rom. viii, 3. 8 Rom. viii, 1. 

9 2 Thess. iii, 3, 10 Heb. vii, 25. " 2 Cor. iv, 4. 

155 



Haee Century Messages. 

ter-of-course thing, causing little uneasiness or 
concern ? 

3. Is it not wrong to regard our tempta- 
tions and trials, our weakness and unworthi- 
ness, as reasons for dismissing the expectation 
of permanently overcoming sin? This is not 
a question of circumstances, unfavorable or fa- 
vorable. Weakness and unworthiness have no 
bearing in the case. It is a question of the abil- 
ity of Christ as a Savior, and of our acceptance 
of Him as our all-sufficient keeper. He stands 
before us in the Gospel as the One Almighty 
Conqueror of sin. Conquering for us, He 
would conquer in us. "Who of God, is made 
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, 
and redemption?" 12 

" 1 Cor. i, 30. 



156 



"I have lost all, excepting what I have given away." 
— Mark Antony. 

"That they do good, that they be rich in good works, 
ready to distribute, willing to communicate." — i Tim. 
vi, 18. 

"What maintains one vice would bring up two chil- 
dren." "Buy what thou hast no need of, and erelong 
thou shalt sell thy necesaries." — Poor Richard. 

A business man states that he was awakened to a 
sense of his duty in the use of his money by seeing the 
following item on his day-book : "To pug-terrier, $10 ; 
to missionary cause, $5." 

"Almost all the parables of Christ, in their primary 
statement, bear upon the relation of men to their money, 
— the parable of the Talents, of the Prodigal Son, and 
of the Rich Man and Lazarus, as illustrations." — F. F. 
Emerson. 



157 



"There is something radically wrong in society 
when a woman spends three thousand dollars for a ring, 
as was the case recently in this city, and another was 
found starving in a hallway, with a dead infant in her 
arms." — Rev. Lyman Abbott. 

A literary society offered a reward for the best 
definition of money, the author of the following receiv- 
ing the prize : "Money, an article which may be used as 
a universal passport to any place but heaven; and is a 
universal provider of everything but happiness." 

"It is a remarkable fact, that men should have 
agreed to apply the word miser, or miserable, to the 
man eminently addicted to the vice of covetousness, to 
him who loves his money with his whole heart and soul. 
Here, too, the moral instinct lying deep in all hearts 
has borne testimony to the tormenting nature of this 
vice, and the man who enslaves himself to his money 
is proclaimed, in our very language, to be a miser; that 
is, a miserable man." — Trench on the study of words. 



158 



XIII. 

Christians and Money. 

"If therefore ye have not been faithful in the un- 
righteous mammon, who shall commit to your trust the 
true riches?" — Luke xvi, n. 

A steward was accused of unfaithfulness 
in handling his employer's money. When 
about to be called to an account, he adopted the 
device of cutting down bills receivable, thus 
cheating his master still further, and bribing 
his debtors to become his own friends. The 
fraud was exposed, but the proprietor, while 
discharging the servant for dishonesty, com- 
mended his practical foresight. He had man- 
aged so to use the funds as to secure his own 
advantage. He had made friends for the fu- 
ture. Jesus makes this one fact the lesson of 
the story. He says that Christians may use 
money in such a way as to gain friends in the 
eternal habitations. There is then a Christian 
use of money. In other words : 

x 59 



Half Century Messages. 

I. Religion has Something to Do with 
Money. 

i . By money we mean, not merely our ordi- 
nary medium of exchange, but all forms of 
worldly possession, the right use of which is 
as much a part of religion as prayer or church- 
going. In the thought of some, worldly busi- 
ness and religion appear to be separate affairs. 
Money matters, they seem to think, belong to a 
department of life with which a man's religion 
has nothing to do. Religion with them con- 
sists in devotional exercises and reasonable at- 
tention to the Church, but money-getting, 
money-holding, and money-using belong to 
business, and are not to be counted in as an 
element in the religious life. That is, a man's 
religion may be all right, while his use of 
money is all wrong. 

2. Manifestly this is not the Bible view. 
Under the Jewish dispensation, in which almost 
everything was governed by specific rules, 
every man's money was tithed for religious and 
benevolent purposes. 1 The people and the 
priests, the rich and the poor were alike re- 



1 Lev. xxvii, 30, 32. 

l6o 



Christians and Monex 

quired to bring the tenth of their products each 
year; this as a part of their religious obliga- 
tions. 2 Before there was a written law upon 
this subject, Jacob promised to do this while 
praying for Divine guidance and protection. 3 
He felt that to get into covenant with God he 
must pledge faithfulness in the use of his 
earthly possessions. And in later times the 
backsliding of the Jewish Church was marked 
by the fact that the whole nation had robbed 
God in the matter of tithes and offerings. 4 
Even Old Testament religion had to do with 
the use of money. 

3. New Testament teaching is not less par- 
ticular on this point. It is true that there are 
fewer specific rules governing Christian duty 
in the New Testament than in the Old ; more is 
left to enlightened conscience, and the appli- 
cation of the law of love. But this law of love 
itself requires that money must be gained, held, 
and used with reference to the honor of God 
and the highest well-being of man. It is put 
down as one of the principles of the kingdom 
of heaven, that no man can make money the 
supreme object of his pursuit, and at the same 

2 Numb, xviii, 26-29. 3 Gen. xxviii, 22. 4 Mai. Hi, 8-10. 

II l6l 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

time be a servant of God. 5 While the posses- 
sion of wealth, acquired by legitimate means, 
is not pronounced a sin, the holding of large 
estates is declared a hindrance to those who 
would seek the kingdom of God. 6 The fact 
was shown in the young man who had "great 
possessions," but who turned away from Christ 
when asked to devote his property to the good 
of others. 7 The three men whose everlasting 
ruin is plainly stated in the Gospels, lost their 
all in the misuse of their worldly possessions. 
One was a prosperous farmer, who hoarded his 
"much goods, laid up for many years," when 
he might have used them in ministrations of 
good to others. 8 Another lavished his money 
upon himself. He indulged in expensive dress 
and sumptuous banquets. His social gather- 
ings were not only occasional ; they were daily, 
and he left the poor to suffer at his gate. 9 
Judas became so hungry for a little more 
money that he pilfered from the bag with which 
he was intrusted, and as his greed increased he 
struck a bargain with the Jewish priests by 
which he gained enough to buy a little more 



5 Matt, vi, 28. 6 Luke xviii, 24. T Ibid. 23. 

8 Ibid, xii, 16-20. 9 Ibid, xvi, 19-31. 

l62 



Christians and Money. 

land. 10 Poor fellow ! he thought his bargain a 
sharp one. He was sure that Jesus would take 
care of Himself, and the fifteen dollars would 
be clear gain. His sin was not remarkable; it 
was simply getting money in a wrong way for 
the purpose of spending it for himself. The 
solemn emphasis which is placed upon these 
cases in the Gospel record indicates the views 
of our Lord concerning religion and money. 

4. That Christianity requires the gaining 
and using of money to be as religious as any 
other of our duties is plain from the very na- 
ture of Christian consecration. In this we rec- 
ognize God's right to all we call our own. We 
dedicate to His service all with which He has 
intrusted us. Were we to make an exception 
of our worldy goods, we should vitiate the 
whole transaction. We are as much pledged 
to use our money for Christ's cause, as we are 
our talents in any other direction. He who 
does not give his worldly possessions to God, 
really does not give himself to God. When 
Jesus told the rich young ruler that, to become 
His follower, he must use his money for the 
good of others, it was not so much that He 

10 Matt, xxvi, 15. 

163 



Hai<f Century Messages. 

wanted the young man's money, as that He 
wanted the man himself. He could not get 
him while his money was withheld. The way 
in which money is used reveals where the heart 
is. We pay most readily for that which we 
prize most highly. 

5. There is no sin in getting money, pro- 
vided it is done through honest methods, and 
with due regard to the interests of others. In- 
deed, to gain in this way is a Christian duty. 
Nor is it a sin to possess money, if that posses-- 
sion is held with benevolent regard to the needs 
of others. Possession, in itself, is neither sin- 
ful nor virtuous. To possess money, or any 
other gift, in a way which prevents its useful- 
ness, is a wrong to others. The value of any 
gift is not in its possession, but in its power of 
service. 

And it is also true that the enjoyment de- 
rived from any talent is realized only in its use- 
fulness. Men of means enjoy their riches only 
in their distribution. If they do not actually 
part with their wealth, they are mentally plan- 
ning to do so, and they derive their enjoyment 
from what they in mind see of its uses. Un- 
used riches bring no happiness to their pos- 
164 



Christians and Money. 

sessor; "his heart taketh not rest in the 
night." 11 

6. The Christian use of money requires that 
expenditures upon ourselves be as small as is 
consistent with, (i) health, (2) culture, (3) 
station in life, (4) the needs of those dependent 
upon us. It forbids the use of money for the 
gratification of appetite, or taste, or for the 
multiplication of luxuries and conveniences, 
simply because we have it and call it our own. 
When we spend upon ourselves what would do 
more good if bestowed in other ways, we are 
not making a Christian use of money. We can 
easily have an unchristian number of wants. 
Our apparent necessities multiply with the 
means of satisfying them. They will not regu- 
late themselves. We are wont to proceed upon 
the notion that our money is our own ; we have 
worked hard for it ; we have earned it, and it is 
ours to dispose of as we please. If we wish to 
buy conveniences and luxuries, whose business 
is it, since we have the wherewith to' pay for 
them ? We forget that what we call our money 
is really God's money, and that we are taking 
charge of it for Him. Besides, who are we and 

11 Keel, ii, 23. 

165 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

what immense good have we done, that we have 
a right to secure for ourselves all the conven- 
iences which our money will buy? 

7. Giving is eminently the Christian use of 
money. It was the Lord Jesus who said, "It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." 12 To 
give from mere impulse, to give from the ex- 
pectation of a remuneration, giving because 
others give, giving to excel others, — none of 
these are Christian reasons for giving. They 
lead to unwise and spasmodic giving, and put 
many a good cause to serious disadvantage. 
Christians should give as God gives — to bless 
others. They should give as the Lord pros- 
pers them, not as they may fancy He might 
prosper them. The poor have no right to re- 
fuse small gifts; the well-to-do should give 
larger ones. It is as sinful to be ashamed of 
giving little, as to be proud of contributing 
much. Paul held the early Church together by 
taking collections in his Gentile congregations 
for the Jewish Christians who were starving in 
the famine. We have no knowledge that any 
of his Churches dreaded the collection, or that 
any converted pagan ever thought a Sunday 

12 Acts xx, 35. 

166 



Christians and Mon^y. 

offering inconsistent with the devotional exer- 
cises of the day. 

REMARKS. 

1. Money used according to Christian prin- 
ciples is among the most powerful instruments 
of good. It can be made a civilizing and Chris- 
tianizing force anywhere in the world. No 
man in our time who would make his money 
a blessing can for a day lack opportunity. Used 
wrongly it is an equal power for evil. To have 
money is no trifling responsibility. 

2. Money brings with it not a few dangers. 
We are inclined to self-gratification, and are 
often held back from some of its forms from 
inability to incur the expense. In the purchas- 
ing power of money all forms of self-indulg- 
ence come within our reach, and self-denial be- 
comes difficult. "The lusts of other things" 
still choke the word till it becomes unfruitful. 13 

3. The conceded superiority which, in the 
popular mind, attaches itself to even moderate 
wealth, brings to its possessors an ensnaring 
pleasure. It may beget a feeling of self-conse- 
quence and self-sufficiency which is most detri- 



1 3 Mark iv, 19. 

167 



Half Century Messages. 

mental to Christian life and influence. This is 
not true at all, but is sufficiently frequent to 
have led Paul to say, "Charge them that are 
rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, 
nor trust in uncertain riches." 14 

4. Those who have much of this world are 
too generally contented with things as they are. 
It has been said that no great reform has ever 
been initiated by the wealthy class. Looking 
at their own abundance, they have been dis- 
posed to say, "Let well enough alone." It is 
difficult for persons in such a mental condition 
to realize deeply a sense of need. 

5. Pastors and other Christian workers 
generally find it more difficult to reach men 
of large means, than those of the poorer classes. 
With most men wealth creates isolation and 
distance. It requires greater skill in approach- 
ing them, and greater courage to be faithful 
to them. They are not always as willing as 
others to receive the truth which searches the 
heart, and points out the unethical features of 
the life. They are more liable to become en- 
tangled in business projects which Christian 
principles can not justify, and as they are har- 



14 1 Tim. vi, 17. 

168 



Christians and Money. 

assed by innumerable tormenters they become 
unapproachable. They are probably subjects of 
less personal effort, for the purpose of leading 
them to Christ, than almost any other class. 
Both they and their spiritual guides are not 
a little in danger of falling into the error that, 
with rich people, "a very little religion will go 
a great way." 15 

16 T. DeWitt Talmage. 



169 



"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, 
being made a curse for us." — Gal. iii, 13. 

"The person under the law serves that perchance he 
may be saved; the person under grace serves because 
he is saved. The person under law serves in order that 
God may forgive ; the person under grace serves because 
God has forgiven. One works in order that he may be- 
come a son, the other works because he is a son. And 
there is as much difference between the two ways of liv- 
ing as between slavery and liberty, a burden and a bless- 
ing." — Studies in Hebrews. 



171 



XIV. 
Und^r the Law. 

"But before faith came we were kept under the law, 
shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be re- 
vealed."-^-Gal. iii, 23. 

It taxed the wisdom and patience of Paul 
to keep his Jewish converts from falling back 
into a reliance upon their old legal system. 
They felt that, in accepting Christ as all they 
needed, they were losing almost everything — 
their priests, their altars, and all their sacred 
rites. A class of Judaizing teachers arose who 
sought to enforce upon every young Christian 
the observance of Jewish rites. They kept upon 
Paul's track, and were often too successful in 
their efforts to unsettle the faith of the Gentile 
converts. They did their worst in Galatia. 
This fact is the key to the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians. 

Paul met these false teachers with that one 
great fact, which means so much to the Church 

173 



Half Century Messages. 

of to-day; viz., that revelation is progressive; 
that the Mosaic economy was preparatory, and 
not final ; that its externals had spiritual mean- 
ings which were realized in Christ, the Law 
was "a schoolmaster," it dealt with children; 
and that those who relied upon it as the way 
of salvation were rejecting Christ and remain- 
ing in bondage. 1 

The spirit of Judaism sometimes takes on a 
Christian form. There are Old Testament 
saints in New Testament times. It would not 
be difficult to name religious sects which, while 
bearing the Christian name, maintain peculiar- 
ities which are distinctively Jewish. They seek 
to revive Jewish ideas of the kingdom of God 
and of the reign of the Messiah. They would 
put the yoke of a Saturday Sabbath upon the 
necks of all Christian believers, and bid us hope 
for a heaven which is little more than a second 
edition of the land of Canaan. Still more to 
be regretted is the fact that the spirit of Jewish 
legalism often appears in the religious life of 
Christian people who have no sympathy with 
the externalism and literalism of modern Ad- 
ventism. Converts do still fall back under the 



* Gal. iii, 24. 

174. 



Undsr th£ Law. 

law. Justified by faith, they seek to be made 
perfect by works. This fall from grace to law 
works now as in Paul's day, "it gendereth to 
bondage." 2 We note some characteristics of 
this religious state. 

i. These Christian legalists are relying 
upon themselves instead of trusting Christ. 
They do not think this of themselves ; they are 
right in theory upon the question, but they are 
really attempting to live Christian lives alone, 
and in their own strength. They say, "I am 
trying to be a Christian/' "I mean to do as well 
as I can," "I am not going to give up the 
struggle." These expressions indicate that, 
instead of trusting in Christ and accepting Him 
as their life, their reliance is really upon their 
own strength. 

2. This class of believers are continually 
getting ready to believe in Christ, but do not 
quite believe in Him. They are waiting till 
they do something more, or until God does 
something more, before they accept Christ as 
their own Savior. They are not quite ready; 
not good enough, or not bad enough, so they 
wait. To wait for anything before accepting 

2 Gal. iv, 24. 

*75 



Half Century Messages. 

Christ is a legal state of mind ; such are under 
the law. 

3. The religion of those who are under the 
law consists largely in making good resolutions. 
They resolve, and they promise God and them- 
selves that they will be more faithful, but find 
themselves very little improved by the process. 
They make vows to resist temptation, as if 
there was some strength in a vow, but realize 
no victory over sin as a result. They try ex- 
periments with themselves. They hear this 
great man and that one; they read the books 
which are recommended to them; they try all 
which they know has been helpful to others, as 
invalids try different remedies of which they 
have heard, and thus postpone trust in Christ, 
and keep under the law. 

4. Christians who are in a legal state are 
generally actuated by fear. Like the man with 
one talent, they are "afraid." 3 They fear 
death; they fear the judgment-day; they fear 
for their eternal future. They stand in dread 
of God and of what He may do. They see in 
Him an almighty and righteous Sovereign, 
but they can not realize that He is a loving 



8 Matt, xxv, 25. 

I76 



Undsr the; Law. 

Father. They are at the mountain which burns 
"with blackness and darkness and tempest," 
but have not come to Mount Zion and to Jesus, 
the Mediator of the new covenant. 4 They are 
those who, "through fear of death, are all their 
lifetime subject to bondage/' 5 

5. To those in a legal state Christian duty 
is a task , rather than a delight. They serve 
from fear, rather than from love. Their re- 
ligion is a way of getting to heaven. They are 
often discouraged; they tire of religious duty. 
They wish there was some easier way to get 
to heaven. Conscience to them is rather a goad 
than a guide. As a result they are religious 
by spells ; their fears are periodically awakened, 
but their interest as often subsides. They per- 
ishingly need to accept Jesus Christ just as they 
are, and treat the law as the rule of duty, not 
as the way of life for a sinner. 

6. Christians under the law, when con- 
scious of having sinned, go away from Christ 
instead of coming at once to Him. They think 
of their broken promises, and they have not the 
face to make any more. Their efforts to live 
right have so often failed that they are dis- 

*Heb. xii, 18-24. * Ibid, ii, 15. 

12 I?7 



Haee Century Messages. 

heartened. If they dared, they would give it 
all up. They grieve in silence over their relig- 
ious state, and for a time stop praying, for they 
are ashamed to meet the Lord. When they 
have worn off the sense of wrong-doing, they 
come back like a punished child, to try and do 
better. 

7. The legalist is not moved to labor for 
others. He has so much trouble of his own 
that his heart can not go out towards others. 
He can not point out the way of faith to others, 
for he has not found it himself. He is alarmed 
when he discovers that others have experiences 
much richer than his own ; they suggest to him 
fear and despair, rather than joyous expecta- 
tion. 

8. It will not be strange if Christians in 
this legal state lower their standard of Chris- 
tian life. They will think the Sermon on the 
Mount impracticable. Some will alternate be- 
tween strictness and laxness in the interpreta- 
tion of Christian duty. The Pharisee and the 
Antinomian both come from the ranks of legal- 
ists. To be under the law is a state so joyless 
and dissatisfying, that those who have long felt 



178 



Under the Law. 

its chills of despair are easily led to embrace 
any doctrine, or philosophy, or sophistry which 
promises them relief. Anything calling itself 
Christian, which makes little of sin and noth- 
ing of hell, and which tells them they are better 
than they have thought themselves to be, will 
easily make disciples of these tired-out souls, 
who pant for rest as the hart pants for the water 
brooks. Men will not forsake their religion 
if in it they realize intellectual and spiritual 
rest, but they will sit very loosely towards that 
which does not meet these great demands of 
their natures. 

9. Is there a zvay out of this harrowing 
legal state f The answer is easy, and it is the 
old, old story of the Gospel. Receive Christ; 
receive Him now; receive Him without once 
thinking what He will do for you. Receive 
Him as having borne all your sins, as knowing 
all your difficulties, and as infinitely able and 
willing to do for you all you need. Receive 
Him, not as an experiment, but for time and 
eternity, whatever may or may not be the re- 
sult. Receive Him as strength in place of 
your weakness; as the very life of your life. 



179 



Hai^f Century Messages. 

Receive Him perpetually, "Who is made, not 
after the law of a carnal commandment, but 
after the power of an endless life." 6 "For 
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth." 7 



6 Heb. vii, 16. 'Rom. x, 4. 



l80 



"Hardness of heart is the natural consequence of the 
indulgence of sin. As the natural consequence of the 
cultivation of virtue, is virtue ; of kindness, is kindness ; 
of tenderness, is tenderness ; so the natural consequence 
of the indulgence of sin is sin, — a sinful hardness of 
heart." — Hodge's Conference Papers. 

"The case of Pharaoh is simply one picture out of 
thousands of the eternal struggle between the will of 
God and the will of man. Somewhere, at the parting of 
the ways, every soul comes to the same crisis, to that 
valley of decision where, in the mystery of choice, is 
sown the seed of character." — The Beauty of Jesus. 



181 



XV. 

Hardening the Heart. 

"To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your 
heart." — Psa. xcv, 7. 

This ninety-fifth Psalm is a hymn which 
was sung in the public worship of the Hebrews. 
It thus often admonished the people of the fact 
that God is a speaking God ; that He speaks to 
His worshipers, and that to hear His voice and 
not obey is a self-hardening process. It called 
to mind the great mistake of their forefathers, 
who for the period of forty years so frequently 
heard the voice of God, and yet so persistently 
disobeyed Him. They hardened their hearts; 
they were refused an entrance into the prom- 
ised land ; they were overthrown in the wilder- 
ness. 

This warning will be timely and weighty 
so long as God speaks to men, and men dis- 
obey. The greatest peril of unsaved men is 
a hardened heart. The processes which pro- 

183 



Half Century Messages. 

duce this are constantly going on with all who 
disobey God's voice. This instance of the self- 
hardened Israelites is again and again brought 
forward in the New Testament as warnings 
to all who hear the Gospel. 1 

I. Note Some of the Ways in which Men 
Harden their Hearts. 

i. In general, it is by sinning against light. 
Pharaoh was undisturbed till he heard the voice 
of Jehovah through Moses. It was those who 
saw God's works forty years whose hearts were 
fatally hardened. It was those who, when they 
knew God, glorified Him not as God, whose 
foolish heart was darkened, and whose doom 
is announced in the fact that "God gave them 
up." Upon the men of our own day the light 
of the age shines; the light of home and 
Church, and the light of a country filled with 
Bibles and churches. They can not reject the 
Gospel without hardening their hearts. 

2. Men harden their hearts by dishonesty 
with the truth. They talk against that which 
they believe ; they oppose truth which reproves 
them; they offer frivolous excuses as reasons 



1 Matt. xiii, 14, 15 ; John xii, 40 ; Rom. xi, 8 ; Heb. iii, 12, xii, 25. 
184 



Hardening th£ H^arT. 

why they are not Christians; they conceal or 
deny the convictions of sin which are some- 
times upon them; they plead self -justification 
for their impenitence ; they are uncandid in their 
attitude towards the Bible and the Church. 

3. All forms of vice harden the heart. In- 
temperance and unchastity paralyze the moral 
sense. Vices associated with bodily appetite 
are specially deadening to the religious sensi- 
bility. Gambling, and all forms of business 
which involve cheating, deception, and wrongs 
against others, can not fail to harden the heart. 
The habits of scoffing, profane swearing, and 
of telling falsehoods are heart -hardening sins. 

4. Unfairness with Divine Providence re- 
sults in hardness of heart. Refusing to ac- 
knowledge the hand of God in providential 
privileges or reproofs. When men pass through 
seasons of deep affliction, and are the worse 
rather than better as the result ; when they pass 
through times of religious awakening and re- 
main impenitent, they will become harder than 
before. When they treat their ordinary relig- 
ious privileges with neglect or indifference, they 
will wear out the influence of the means of 
grace and become hard. 

185 



Half Century Messages. 

5. When men fall into the habit of making 
promises, and of neglecting to fulfill them, they 
will grow hard of heart. Unpaid vows ; prom- 
ises of future repentance not redeemed ; prom- 
ises to God and to friends, treated with indiffer- 
ence or ridicule, — these are processes which 
make the heart hard. Resolutions to reform, 
or to become Christian, often made and as often 
broken, are self-hardening in the extreme. 

REMARKS. 

1. The penalties of self -hardening are in- 
evitable; they begin with the sin itself. Indif- 
ference to the truth is a speedy result. If the 
truth be admitted, little is made of it. The fact 
of sin is admitted, but without a sense of per- 
sonal condemnation. To a hardened heart the 
whole realm of spiritual reality seems distant 
or unreal. 

2. Spiritual darkness settles down upon a 
hardened heart. A hard heart can not see, and 
general unbelief is the result. It puts light for 
darkness, and darkness for light. 2 Persons 
who have hardened their hearts are often ready 
to grasp at any passing delusion, as if it were 

8 Isa. v, 2. 

186 



Hardening the: Hsart. 

truth. In this they may be sincere, but do not 
realize that their disobedience to God has pre- 
pared their minds for self-deception, 

3. One of the penalties of hardening the 
heart is false security. As men grow hard they 
often fancy themselves to be not very bad, and 
even think themselves to be growing better. 
They resent the idea that they are lost; they 
regard their state as normal; any keen sense 
of need has passed away, and they conclude 
that the little measure of mercy which they 
require will get to them at some time and in 
some way. The fear to sin which they once 
had has faded away, and they easily make up 
their minds to take all the risk of dying as 
they are. 

4. An inevitable penalty of self-hardening 
is increased hardness. This results in the na- 
ture of the case. The very means which God 
employs to induce obedience become the occa- 
sion of greater obstinacy. The measures which 
God employed to soften the heart of Pharaoh 
rendered him the more stubborn. The harden- 
ing of his heart is ten times ascribed to Pharaoh 
himself, ten times to God, and several times 
to the messages which Moses delivered. It is 

187 



HAi,tf Century Messages. 

not ascribed to God until it had been several 
times ascribed to the unyielding monarch him- 
self. Self -hardening was then followed by ju- 
dicial hardening. 

5. Men are apt to think their dangers out- 
side themselves. They think of death, of a day 
of reckoning, and of a dark beyond; but their 
greatest dangers are in themselves. No other 
peril is to be compared with that which steals 
on upon every impenitent soul, more and more 
each day — a hardened heart. This is the dan- 
ger which made Jesus weep over Jerusalem. 
This is the peril which might well make the 
cheek of every neglecter of the Gospel turn 
pale. 



188 



XVI. 
Education is Theistic. 

"And ye shall know that I am the Lord." — I Kings 
xx, 28. 

There was war between Syria and Israel. 
A battle was fought among the hills of Eph- 
raim, and Ben-hadad suffered a crushing de- 
feat. A year later hostilities were renewed. 
The Syrian generals suggested to the king that 
their former failure was due to the interference 
of the gods. Accepting the views of their na- 
tion relative to the numbers and limited domin- 
ions of deities, they argued that the gods of 
the Israelites held sway among the hills, but 
that their own ruled in the low lands. They 
therefore advised fighting this time in the val- 
leys where, by the help of the Syrian deities, 
they would be sure of success. 

Now, Ahab, king of Israel, was not a man 
whom we should suppose God could consist- 
189 



Half Century Messages. 

ently help. He was idolatrous ; he had insulted 
Jehovah again and again, and had dragged the 
nation down to its lowest stage of moral cor- 
ruption. And yet, on the eve of a decisive 
engagement, a prophet came and assured him 
that the morrow would bring to his arms a 
sweeping victory. This prophet was, however, 
particular to inform him that this success would 
not be achieved on his account. There was a 
higher reason. The Syrians had planned their 
campaign upon the assumption that the God of 
Israel, like their own gods, was local and lim- 
ited in his dominion. On that assumed notion 
they had staked the issues of battle. It was 
more necessary for the good of the world to 
have that error refuted, than it was to have the 
wicked Ahab and his army overthrown. Had 
victory turned in favor of the Syrian hosts that 
day, it would have been regarded as confirm- 
ing the notion that the Jehovah of Israel was 
God of the hills only. It was a false idea of 
God which was defeated that day ; it was truth 
concerning God which won that field. Ben- 
hadad's council of war had challenged the uni- 
versality and omnipotence of God, and the an- 
swer came back in a defeat which sent out this 
190. 



Education is Theistic. 

message to all the nations — and ye shall know 
that I am the Lord. 

Nearly a hundred times we come upon this 
short sentence in our Old Testament Scrip- 
tures. Many hundreds of times we find its 
equivalent in meaning in both the Old Testa- 
ment and the New. It is the key sentence 
which unlocks the mysteries of all history. 
Creation, miracles, the incarnation, days of 
grace and days of judgment, all have their ex- 
planation and meaning in the purpose to make 
men know the Living and Universal God. 
With this purpose Bible history coincides. The 
wonders of the Exodus were not merely the 
startling performances of Moses ; they were not 
a trial of strength between a Hebrew shepherd 
and an Egyptian king ; they were not alone the 
struggles for an emancipation of slaves. All 
these were but incidents of a higher controversy 
between the gods of Egyptian superstition and 
the Jehovah of the universe. The miraculous 
in this history ceases to be difficult of belief 
when we see its meaning in the oft recurring 
sentence, "And the Egyptians shall know that 
I am the Lord." For this purpose the sea was 
divided, the wilderness traversed, the tabernacle 
191 



Hai,f Century Messages. 

and the temple were planned and constructed; 
for this, captivity overtook unfaithful Israel and 
Judah; for this, Jesus the Messiah came, suf- 
fered, and died. The purpose in this long 
record to disclose God to man makes history a 
science, and transforms the supernatural into 
the most majestic of the natural. 

In the text-book of the universe, then, the 
fundamental lesson is this, — ye shall know that 
I am the Lord. And can that which God has 
made the leading lesson in the world's educa- 
tion be consistently or rightly ignored in our 
educational systems ? If it be true that the uni- 
verse is God's text-book, prepared on purpose 
to teach men this great truth, is it possible for 
us rightly to study the universe while we leave 
out of the account its fundamental design ? It 
is our contention that education, in its highest 
and truest sense, is necessarily theistic. It joins 
with prophets in announcing as its basal theme 
that God is the Lord. It has a thousand voices, 
but they all unite in saying, "Understand us 
rightly, and you will know that God is the 
Lord." 

i. Man has often been called a religious 
animal. He is a moral, as truly as he is an 
192. 



Education is Theistic. 

intellectual or a physical, being. He says, "I 
ought, and I ought not," even before he knows 
what he should or should not do. Men every- 
where know there is right, and they know there 
is wrong, and however much they may differ 
as to the specific acts which these terms require 
or forbid, they never deny the fact of the moral 
distinction. Universally man recognizes his de- 
pendence upon a higher power. He prays be- 
fore he can reason. He reproaches himself, 
and blames others for wrong-doing. He ap- 
proves honesty, justice, and self-sacrifice, and 
just as spontaneously condemns tyranny, false- 
hood, and selfishness. He is a worshiping 
being. He will have either God or gods. His 
notions of Deity may be crude and degrading, 
but the fact of a supreme power is in his earliest 
thinking. He is nowhere found without re- 
ligion. Altars and temples and priestly castes 
are among the unvarying facts of his history. 
Low as may sometimes be his religious thought, 
savage and revolting as may be his sacrificial 
rites, his barbarous immolations, his magical 
incantations, and even his graven images are 
the expressions of a religious nature which, 
though imprisoned in superstitions, yet refuses 
13 193 



Half Century Messages. 

to be suppressed. In various ways men recog- 
nize accountability. They intuitively dread the 
days of reckoning. Crime forever looks over 
its shoulder as if to catch sight of an avenging 
Nemesis, while conscious virtue gazes upward 
in expectation of the favor of heaven. Man 
expects to live forever. His tombs and ceme- 
teries reveal his hope of immortality. His 
notions of future life may contain all the differ- 
ences of individual and race development, but 
his hope or dread of another world reveals his 
expectation of future life. He may theorize 
himself into doubts, and for the moment pro- 
nounce the life to come a dream ; but as often 
as he doubts, the vision will return to assert its 
reality, and overwhelm him with the convic- 
tion that death does not end all. No other be- 
liefs are so tenacious of life as those which per- 
tain to religion. For nothing besides will men 
suffer and sacrifice so willingly. 

And what do these indisputable facts mean ? 
They mean, first of all, that "with man religion 
is an everlasting reality." 1 It is as germane to 
his nature as the light to his eye or air to his 
lungs. Heaven and earth may pass away, but 

1 Through Nature to God, page 191. 

*94- 



Education is Theistic. 

so long as the human race continues, religion 
will not pass away. Here lies one of the rea- 
sons why infidelity always has been and always 
will prove a failure — it attacks the fundamental 
affirmations of man's nature. If every man 
upon earth were an atheist to-day, there would 
be believers in God to-morrow. All attempts 
to prove that these moral intuitions are the 
result of education or heredity have failed. 
They are among the original furnishings of 
the mind. They tell us that both man and his 
Maker are moral personalities, and they place 
man's moral nature as the supreme value of his 
being. Any system of education, therefore, 
which leaves this greatest endowment of the 
race without proper direction and cultivation, 
is at best a one-sided education, and any char- 
acter which is formed without regard to moral 
values and obligations, is abnormal and out of 
harmony with truest life. 

2. // we turn from the moral nature of man 
to the system of nature as a whole, we are led 
to the same conclusion; that education, to be 
symmetrical and self-consistent, must be the- 
istic. The universe is rationally constituted; 
the evidences of reason are everywhere mani- 

195 



Half Century Messages. 

fested. If this were not the case, rational 
beings could not understand it, and there could 
be no such thing as science. The study of 
nature consists in tracing out the processes of 
reason along which the universe has been and 
still is being constructed. It is thinking over 
again what has been thought out and written 
down in creation. The more fully nature is 
known, the more certain becomes the implica- 
tion that the Divine Reason and Energy are the 
basal facts in all and through all. Nature is 
a work of art ; shall the picture be studied with- 
out reference to the existence or skill of the 
artist? "All works of creation are, in the 
last analysis, the thoughts of God made ob- 
jective." 2 "Nature," says Tayler Lewis, "is an 
invariable doing." 3 With this view of nature 
there can be no godless science, and to study or 
to teach nature with God ignored, is to stop 
both teacher and student before they reach its 
highest meaning. The same is true of any par- 
ticular branch of science. History is not a dry 
chronicle of successive events ; it is a profound 
philosophy. In the words of Dean Stanley, 
"Human history is no disjointed tale; it is a 

2 Story of Creation, p. 91. 3 I,ange on Genesis, p. 144. 
I96 



Education is Theistic. 

regular development of epochs, one growing 
out of another, cause leading to effect, race fol- 
lowing race, empire succeeding empire on a 
majestic plan, in which the Divine Economy 
is as deeply concerned as in the fate of the 
chosen people." 4 There are no isolated or un- 
related events in history. The past contained 
the power and potency of the present; in the 
present lie the prophecies of the future. The 
general movement is upward towards higher 
ethical standards and better social conditions. 
Said Jonathan Edwards : "The new creation is 
more excellent than the old. So it ever is, that 
when God removes one thing to make way for 
another, the new excels the old." 5 Nothing is 
more self-determined than the volitions of men, 
and nothing is more certain than that a guid- 
ing intelligence rules and overrules them all. It 
is thus that history ceases to be a medley of 
conflicting happenings, and becomes both a sci- 
ence and a philosophy. George Bancroft has 
well said : "By comparing events with the great 
movement of humanity, historic truth may es- 
tablish itself as a science, and the principles 
that govern human affairs, extending like a 

-Lect. on Hist, of Jewish Church, iii, p. 48. 6 Works, ii, 377. 

197 



Half Century Messages. 

path of light from century to century, become 
the highest demonstration of the superintend- 
ing providence of God." 6 Shall we say, then, 
that history can be studied and taught as it 
should be in a practical denial of its most fun- 
damental fact? If that which distinguishes 
history as a philosophy from an inexplicable 
jumble of events is the element of intelligent 
plan and direction which it everywhere exhibits, 
to teach or to study it as the fateful outcome 
of blind forces, is to repudiate its most philo- 
sophical aspects; it is, like the Gentiles of old, 
to be carried away unto dumb idols. The Ox- 
ford historian already named declares that the 
first attempt to present history as a philosophy 
is found in the book of the prophet Daniel. 
And yet the only philosophy of history which 
this prophet teaches is in the facts that the 
Court of Heaven holds dominion in the affairs 
of men, and that the movement of all history is 
the coming of the Kingdom of God in the earth. 
The theistic conception of history, then, is that 
which renders it a science and a philosophy. 

And what shall we say of the natural sci- 
ences from this same point of view? The 

« Hist. U. S. iii, 398, 399. 

I98 



Education is Theistic. 

heavens are the book which astronomers for 
thousands of years have been attempting to 
read. Such a degree of intelligence is required 
for the reading of this wondrous volume that 
our wise men of the west, who have spent their 
lives in observing the stars, have as yet scarcely 
learned their alphabet. But does the reading 
of a book demand a degree of intelligence which 
is not required for its writing? Was not the 
content of the book in thought before it was 
set up in the type of stellar worlds? If men 
find geometrical principles in the motions and 
orbits of the bodies, it is because geometry was 
thought out and applied before human thinking 
reached it. In the well-known saying of Plato, 
it is because "God continually geometrizes." 
The study itself would convey to us no knowl- 
edge whatever, if the laws of thought in man 
were not those in the mind of the Creator. In 
the light of this fact, the fundamental implica- 
tions of science are theistic. Nature becomes 
a Divine Revelation — "the utterance of the 
Eternal Reason." 7 And shall we call that the 
highest type of education which calls upon the 
teacher and his pupils to halt at the very point 

7 Heart of Christ, p. 465. 

199 



Half Century Messages. 

at which the secrets of nature are most ade- 
quately explained and most sublimely inter- 
preted? We are not contending that science 
demonstrates the truths of theism, but we do 
insist that the imminent presence of the per- 
sonal and living God in the system of nature 
is its logical implication, and that to stop at the 
threshold of nature's profoundest significance 
from the fear that education will be religious, 
is an imbecility of secularism from which may 
the merciful heavens forever save the lecture- 
rooms of our colleges and universities ! 

3. It is suggestive in this connection to take 
note of a few facts which are confessedly with- 
out explanation excepting upon the basis of 
theistic belief. For there are many facts, in 
themselves indisputable, for which our scien- 
tific and philosophical knowledge alone can give 
no account, but which admit of ready expla- 
nation upon the principles of Christian theism. 
We base our astronomical calculations upon the 
Newtonian theory of gravitation; viz., that 
bodies attract each other directly as their 
masses, and inversely as the squares of their 
distances. But here is the old problem, as yet 



200 



Education is Theistic. 

scientifically unsolved — how can bodies thus 
attract and be attracted when distant from each 
other? That is, how can a body act where it 
is not? This was a stumbling-block to the 
Newtonians at the time the theory was an- 
nounced. Some argued that a body can no 
more act where it is not, than it can act when 
it is not. And the problem remains. We still 
ask, what is attraction? What is gravitation? 
Its existence is undisputed. It is universal; it 
acts equally between all bodies; it can not be 
produced, nor can it be destroyed. It can be 
neither increased non diminished by any inter- 
vening medium; it occupies no time in trans- 
mission, and always keeps to its invariable laws. 
It is unaffected by the physical conditions, or 
the chemical combinations of the attracting 
masses, and thus the way seems barred to an 
explanation of its nature. The world remains 
without any theory which satisfactorily answers 
this question, excepting the theory which is sup- 
plied by the doctrines of Christian theism. 

If it be said that gravitation is force, no one 
disputes this, but the statement explains noth- 
ing. The question returns, what is force? 



201 



Half Century Messages. 

Here, too, our scientists are silent. "Force," 
says Professor Silliman, "is the name of the 
unknown cause of known effects/' 8 

A skeptical philosopher of high repute 
places the nature of force as one of the prob- 
lems which are absolutely unconquerable. 9 

Now, gravitation and force are not uncon- 
querable problems to believers in a Personal 
God. Gravitation is the perpetual going forth 
of the Divine energy. Like all of nature, it is 
God in the act of speaking. Gravitation is His 
continual doing. As Thomas Carlyle has so 
sublimely written : "Force, force, everywhere 
force. Illimitable whirlwind of force which 
envelops us. Everlasting whirlwind high as 
immensity; old as eternity; what is it? It is 
the Almighty God." 

This tells us what gravitation is ; what force 
is. Christian theism fully explains how bodies, 
separated in space by incalculable distances, 
may mutually attract each other. 

Now, it is an acknowledged principle in sci- 
entific reasoning, that that theory which best 
explains existing phenomena should be accepted 
as correct. In anti-theistic science these prob- 
lems, as we have seen, have confessedly no ex- 

8 Prin. of Science, p. 17. 9 Dubois-Reymond. 

202 



Education is Theistic. 

planation, while theism offers not merely the 
best explanation of the facts, but the only 
theory which does explain them. It has really 
no competing theory in this field of explana- 
tion. Why, then, should not education take in 
theism as an important feature of its teachings 
in the lines into which these great subjects fall? 
And why should the student be told to stop at 
this point of inexplicable mystery from the fear 
that another step would take him into the realm 
of religious thought ? God never made the nat- 
ural and the spiritual so unrelated that the 
lower can be adequately known, while the 
higher is utterly disregarded. And since both 
science and philosophy have written upon these 
great facts that which the Greeks inscribed 
upon the altar of an unknown God, theistic edu- 
cation stands up to declare, "God who made 
the world and all things therein, seeing that 
He is Lord of heaven and earth, and giveth to 
all life and breath and all things, . . . Him 
declare we unto you, that ye should seek the 
Lord, if haply ye might feel after Him and find 
Him, though He be not far from every one of 
us, . . . for in Him we live and move and 
have our being." 10 

10 Acts xvii, 23-28. 

203 



Half Century Messages. 

Then, if we inquire after the origin of mo- 
tion, we are conducted into the presence of an- 
other problem which, on the grounds of anti- 
theistic science, we must abandon without the 
hope of a rational solution. If, at some period 
in the countless ages of the past, the matter of 
the universe was diffused through space and 
was at rest, how came the beginning of motion ? 
Was it attraction of gravitation? We have 
already seen that gravitation with Divine en- 
ergy counted out is but a word without a cor- 
responding thought. Did the vast gaseous or 
vapory mass begin to roll? Why did it begin 
to roll? By the law of inertia it could not 
begin to roll itself, for motion is change which 
is always produced by a cause independent of 
the body moved. As a quaint reasoner has put 
the case : "It could not have begun to roll before 
it existed, for there was then nothing to roll, 
and it could not have begun to roll after it ex- 
isted, for there was then nothing to roll it." 
In the supposed absence of the Divine Pres- 
ence and energy, there is no sufficient ground 
for the beginning of motion. Motion implies 
power, and in the last analysis all power is will- 
power. If, then, science has anything to say 
204 



Education is Theistic 

concerning the origin of motion; indeed, if it 
has anything to say concerning beginnings or 
origins in nature, it has that much to say about 
God. 

Again, if we ask what and whence is life, 
no text-book save the Bible ventures to make 
answer. It is quite easy to note differences be- 
tween that which is living and that which is 
dead, but what is that subtle something which 
makes all the difference, and from what is it 
derived? The non-living on this planet was 
first ; how then came the living from that which 
did not live ? Can that which possesses no life 
in itself give life to another ? There was a vast 
period during which there was no life on this 
earth of ours; it is now here in varied forms; 
whence came it? What started these living 
processes? Science finds life always derived 
from preceding life; it knows no form of life 
which is not begotten of the living. Men have 
labored long, and for some years they wrought 
expectantly in efforts to generate life in the 
non-living, but all such labor has proved un- 
availing. Spontaneous generation is discarded 
even as an hypothesis. Chemists have all 
known substances at their hands; but however 
205 



Haee Century Messages. 

skillful their combinations, they lack the life- 
giving fiat — "Let the waters bring forth." In 
vain have they sought the living among the 
dead. 

It seems quite difficult or impossible so 
much as to frame a definition of life without 
admitting theistic implications. What does it 
avail to say that life is "vitalism," "vital force," 
or the "vital principle?" These mysterious 
terms may be the convenient apologies for 
learned ignorance, but they shed no light upon 
the question — what is life ? It may not be diffi- 
cult to set down certain properties which dis- 
tinguish living matter, but this leaves the na- 
ture of life untouched. For some cause living 
substance can not be defined in terms of chem- 
ical composition. A teacher of wide fame has 
said: "The nature of the bond which holds 
these diverse substances together, and main- 
tains the integrity and continuity of the life 
process, — . . . this is the problem of life, 
and it is apparently as far from solution to-day 
as in the time of our fathers." 11 Aristotle 
applied his rare philosophical powers to the so- 
lution of this problem, and though he failed, 

» Diet, of Phil. ii. Art. Life. 

206 



Education is Theistic. 

his failure was no greater than that of the spec- 
ulations of our own time. 

Here, then, is the universal admission that 
all life comes from preceding life, and that ma- 
terialistic science is unable to account for its 
existence, or even to give it a name. To what 
conclusion do these facts point ? Unmistakably 
to this, that rightly conceived, life does not in- 
here in things, but in a Person. That which 
science admits it does not know, the dear old 
Gospel long ago declared, "In Him was life," 12 
"I am the life," 13 "By Him all things consist." 14 
We are not to understand these Bible sentences 
as meaning that Christ gives life to the living ; 
He is the life of all that lives. Not that He 
was the author of life at the moment of its be- 
ginning, and then left the process to go on 
without His continuous energy. He is the life 
the first moment, and equally the life at every 
succeeding moment. We do not mean that He 
is the author of the lower forms of life only, 
and that He then left the process to develop 
the higher without Him. He is the life equally 
in the lowest, in the higher, and in the highest 
forms. In His absence there could be no life 

12 John i, 4. ™Ibid. xiv, 6. "Col. i, 17. 

207 



Half Century Messages. 

in any form. Life is nothing apart from Him. 
Could we suppose the Creator to cease to exist, 
then all life would cease to be. From that 
moment not a flower would bloom, not a bird 
would sing, no lungs would breathe, no heart 
would throb ; the universe would be a name for 
universal death. Thus, in searching after the 
secret of life, the very halt of philosophical 
analysis proclaims the fact of God as the neces- 
sary implication of its unanswered questions. 
In what science and philosophy know and 
teach, and in what they confess they do not 
know, we hear alike the fundamental principle 
of theism — ye shall know that I am the Lord. 
And it follows that the more complete our sci- 
entific knowledge, the more thorough our edu- 
cation, the more broadly and firmly is laid the 
foundation of theistic belief. 

4. No one will take exception to the state- 
ment that one of the chief objects sought in 
education is the making of worthy citizens of 
this great republic. There would be little gain 
to the country or the world in an education 
which served only to sharpen the intellects of 
bad men. The schools must make men and 
women better as well as greater, or they will 
208 



Education is Theistic. 

increase the ability of some to do the more mis- 
chief. It goes without dispute that the safety 
and perpetuity of our institutions depend not 
alone upon the intelligence, but quite as much 
upon the moral virtue of our people. Honesty, 
integrity, chastity, and all forms of righteous- 
ness are as essential to our welfare as scientific 
knowledge and polite learning. Every educa- 
tional institution in the land should be a school 
in which morality of life is taught, and in which 
the best ethical standards are maintained. If 
colleges are to make leaders in society and in 
the State, they are bound, as far as possible, 
to make leaders whom it will be safe to follow. 
The school, jointly with the Church, is charged 
with the training of young men for the duties 
of citizens. It will determine largely the char- 
acters and lives of those who will teach our 
children. It will fix the ideals and types of 
life in our young people. It has in its hand 
that larger question as to what kind of fathers 
and mothers, husbands and wives shall be con- 
sidered models for the nation. To our schools 
the whole country should be able to look for 
everything which is good, as well as for much 
that is great. Now, can all this be secured if 
14 209 



Half Century Messages. 

God be ignored? Was Washington in error 
when he warned his countrymen that "virtue 
or morality is the necessary spring of popular 
government," and that "reason and experience 
both forbid us to expect that national morality 
can prevail in exclusion of religious principle?" 
These words were written at a time when a 
wave of infidelity was sweeping over the coun- 
try; when "The Rights of Man" were being 
emphasized in denial of the rights of God. 
Washington saw the truth of what he stated, 
and the hundred years which have since elapsed 
have served to confirm the correctness of his 
view. Those who fear not God are, as a rule, 
wont to regard not man. Human morality and 
God are historically and logically connected. 
No power has proved sufficient to restrain the 
downward tendencies of human nature save 
man's hold on God and God's hold on man. If, 
then, morality is necessary to individual well- 
being, and if it is a condition of national safety, 
every institution of learning in the land should 
be a training-school in the science of the moral 
life. And that this training may be successful 
and permanent, God should be both assumed 
and acknowledged. 

2io 



Education is Theistic. 

5. Finally, we may add that education is 
necessarily either positively theistic or prac- 
tically infidel. It is at least difficult to discover 
any middle ground between these two types of 
school influence. Really, there is no such thing 
as non-religious education, meaning by that 
term an education which neither accepts nor 
rejects theistic belief. Education tends toward 
belief or disbelief. The doctrine of God is in 
the air; it is introduced to every man and in 
many ways. No neutral position relative to 
it is possible. As in the olden time, Jesus Christ 
can say now, "He that is not with Me is against 
Me." The very silence which must be adopted 
in the effort to be non-religious is itself a 
voiced declaration that nothing of God belongs 
in education. It ignores, if it does not deny, 
the personal presence of the Immanent Creator. 
It practically says to students that in their edu- 
cation God is not worth thinking about. The 
notion that a truth, just because it may have 
religious bearings, must be dismissed from edu- 
cation as an outside and indifferent matter, can 
not be entertained without conveying prejudice 
against all religious truth. Under this type of 
teaching young people sometimes conceive the 
211 



Half Century Messages. 

idea that their education is a little higher and 
more free from alloy if it is kept studiously 
distant from all religious thought. These 
harmful notions are but logical conclusions 
from the fundamental error that education can 
be just as high, just as thorough, just as com- 
plete with God ignored and counted out. We 
are not contending that our schools should 
be theological seminaries, or that creeds of 
Churches or the formulated doctrines of relig- 
ion should enter into our college courses; but 
we do insist that to study nature in a purposed 
evasion of the very ground of the universe is 
untrue to education. As well might we shun 
the ocean in the study of life in the deep seas, 
and teach our astronomy with no word concern- 
ing gravitation. This, too, when some of the 
greatest philosophers of the age are spending 
their lives in studying the person and life of 
Jesus Christ. This, too, when culture and 
Christianity are walking side by side in closest 
fellowship. Nine-tenths of the colleges in 
America were founded by Christian men — 
founded in the name of Christ, and for the high 
purposes of Christian education. Subtract 
Jesus Christ from the thought of the age, and 

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Education is Theistic. 

it would destroy the literature of the world. 
Jesus Christ is to-day at the head of all the 
progress of the twentieth century. He is the 
soul of its charities and the strength of its re- 
forms. It is He who is lifting ethical standards 
the world around, and giving new forms of 
expression to the life of this wonderful age. 
To attempt to divorce education from Christ 
is to repeat the tragic blunder, "He came unto 
His own, and His own received Him not." 15 
Education should be first among the knees that 
bow and the tongues that confess that Jesus 
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

15 John i, ii. 



213 



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